Six days at sea sees two Cuban refugees leave boat
(CNS): Immigration officials have confirmed that a vessel with eleven migrants arrived off Cayman Brac on Sunday afternoon, 7 April. Two of the men from the group, which included three women, reportedly chose to leave the boat and end their journey in Cayman yesterday after six days at sea. However, the rest of the group continued on with their journey, leaving the Brac around 6pm with no assistance form the local authorities. The two men who disembarked from the vessel were transported to Grand Cayman Monday where they will be processed and likely repatriated to Cuba. This brings the number of migrants currently held at the detention centre to 23.
Category: Local News
There was a time when Cayman was a place of refuge. We took in the poor Cubans, who were risking their lives for freedom. Now Cayman has no heart; no soul. We push them back into the sea. Or send them back to Cuba. No room for you here. We don't want you. We only want money or people with money. We are a desperate, heartless, cold and cruel society. Not like Cayman of "the olden days".
When has Cayman ever been a place of refuge? We have done nothing but kick people out of our island who are not Caymanian. We have some of the most stringent immigration laws in the Caribbean, and probably the world. Now we have the roll over policy that forces people to leave who have formed a life here and may even be positively contributing to the economy and the island. Cayman has never been a place of welcome – unless of course, you are Caymanian.
FREEDOM HAS NO PRICE.
No one has any right to deprive others of THEIR FREEDOM in exchange for ONLY WATER AND HELP AT SEA.
Please google short DOCUMENTARY: NOT WORTH WATER.
It may just open your eyes and hearts to how inhumanly we are treating CUBANS SEEKING HELP FROM US.
Many CUBANS are dying at sea. Many young kids like yours, like ours who can also make the wrong decitions. Instead of judging maybe think of how desperate they can be to as a parent drag their kids in to this situation.
One thing is to visit a country as a tourist and one thing is to live.
Some one once said after visiting Cayman: In Cayman peoples lives. In Cuba they just survives.
Is not a time to joke or judge. CAYMAN PEOPLES LETS LOOK FOR A SOLUTION.
May God bless all those who helps spread the word to help and treat others the way we want others to treat us.
Why have you posted three different times? You're just posting the same thing over and over with too many capital letters. Did you think people wouldn't notice you are the same person just repeating yourself about this documentary? Stop trolling.
May God forgive all those disrespecting, not caring and even making jokes about those poor, but BRAVE CUBANS. They are risking their lives seeking freedom only to see their dreams smashed by us the Cayman Peoples.
This poor memorandum law is only giving us the CAYMAN Islands a bad reputation not only as peoples but as humans beings and most important as Christians.
It puts Shame on all of us for not respecting "HUMAN RIGHTS". For not treating others the way we want to be treated.
How can peoples go to church or sleep at night knowing we are denying water or HELP to another human being.
WATER AND FOOD IN EXCHANGE FOR FREEDOM, AT CAYMAN PEOPLES EXPENSE?.
Just imagine how desperate they must all be when after such a terrible long hard trip they have to chooce to give up their freedom in exchange for a bottle of water.
Would not be better for all of us who may want to HELP THEM AT NO GOVERMENT EXPENSE?. To just allow us the peoples to do so. Instead of locking them up for THE HOLE COUNTRY TO PAY FOR THEIR INHUMAN LOCK UP AND FEEDING?.
If you watch Short Documentary: NOT WORTH WATER, IN INTERNET.
Maybe after you see their story you may feel different about them. We may just be saving a life.
God bless all those who seek freedom and all those who are willing to help.
Thanks.
HUMAN RIGHTS TO HELP those Cubans who are being denied water and HELP.
Isntead being locked up in jail and deprived of their freedom.
Cuba helps all Inmigrants who reach their shores seeking help to reach the USA. Why is Cayman not helping those humans only passing by asking for a little HELPPP
How much could it cost us here to assist them on their journey, compared to HOW MUCH IT COST CAYMAN to lock them up and feed them for more than a month?
DO THE MATH CAYMAN. We can use that money to assist our own.
Better to do give them a little help than to keep them here agaisnt their will to create more problem to them and to our country.
Forget about memorandum, if so just don't give them asylum. They are not asking for it. They all just WANT SOME HELP.
Thanks to all who helps. God bless.
Bless those in need of water and food and also those who do not receive help from Cayman.
Watch short documentary about those Cubans who seeks help and gets locked up in jail after
risking their lives in pursue of freedom.
"NOT WORTH WATER". God bless.
They are refugees if you give them refuge. They are prisoners if you put them in prison. Are we ashamed of ourselves yet?
They aren't seeking refuge in the Cayman Islands – they washed up here on their way to some other country. They came into the island illegally, and don't even start kidding yourself into thinking that if they hadn't been caught they would've tried to stay here as long as they could. They came here illegally, circumventing the normal rules and regulations that everyone else has to go through and in that way they have broken the law. Our laws. Therefore, they are criminals. However temporary that label might be, they are still criminals in this country. If they don't like that, then they can be sent elsewhere. We have enough problems on our hands to deal with, Cuban refugees don't need to be an additional one.
I bet you go to church!
What does that have to do with anything? You want to go feed and clothe these people? Times are hard – why should they be held up in Cayman (when they didn't even want to be here in the first place, since they landed in Cayman accidentally) at cost to us and our government. If you are so Godly, religious and a good person then you volunteer to feed them yourself. Dont judge the commenter's religious affiliation just because you can't see past your bible-bashing fore-fathers. Wisen up, this has nothing to do with religion. Its prudent public policy. Or are you suggesting we go back to inviting every Tom, Dick and Harry to our islands? That has worked out so well in the past.
No, you're on the wrong track, but I give you props for excluding religion from the discussion.
Even if some of us are so hard-hearted that we don't choose to help these people, consider the cost comparison between giving basic human assistance (food, water, fuel) and the cost of repatriating these people.
It is obvious to me, and you sound intelligent, so I hope it is obvious to you as well. To provide basic human assistance is the right thing to do AND the least expensive option of the two. Inthe case of the Cubans in the current story, apparently some chose to not continue their journey, so we did the right thing by holding them and repatriating them. In most cases — as far as I have read for the past 15 years — people hope for assistance so they can continue their journey.
Understand that often Cubans pool their entire life savings to purchase one of these crappy craft that we refer to as a "boat", just for the chance of a better life. Just for the chance. How can we not help?
On the Brac, we are told by the authorities that we must not assist. We are told we face arrest if we do assist. Fine. Arrest me. I have seen Cubans cry when given a compass and a box of food.
I will always assist if I can. It's the least expensive thing for the Cayman Islands, and the best thing for the people involved. and………. hey, if I'm arrested, at least I know that the Captain's Table caters while I am in jail. Expect me to sing opera all night, and I don't sing well.
I agree with helping them, by all means – I don't however, agree with providing a lengthy stay anywhere on island at cost. Repatriation may be expensive, but don't kid yourself into thinking that our government would welcome them with open arms. Basic human assistance is not something I would ever deny these people, by all means, feed them, let them have drink and fill their fuel tanks. I am even OK with them staying for a couple days in the detention center (or anywhere else they are held, for that matter) in order for them to gain some strength and have a welcome break from the elements; I just cannot see the point in having over 20 of these 'refugees' for lengthy stays at the ultimate cost to the government and the citizens.
Just a point of history. Caymans first residents were runaways. The human stain.
The first Caymanians were Jamaicans, and yet we hate the Jamaicans. What is your point?
Thats the truth right there.
23 refugees currently held at the centre? Who is paying for the meals and accomodation of these individuals? Why have they not been sent back home? If they are strong and healthy enough to make it to the islands on an escape route that brought them to Cayman, then surely after such a lengthy stay in our detention center at our cost should make them even stronger. What is the delay in getting these individuals off our island?
If you attend one of the churches that has received a ‘nation building’ hand-out, you may sit down and shut up.
Thanks, but that blood money isn't on my hands. I don't attend any of those churches. I worship in my own way and my beliefs have nothing to do with my comment nor your attention. Address the problem at hand, don't try and bring God into something that has nothing to do with religion. We're talking about illegal refugees that are staying in our detention center for who knows how long, all at cost to the public. Think about that. I know that these days its hard enough to feed my own family, I don't need to be feeding 23 other detainees as well.
And I dont feel like feeding the overweight gasbags that heve been elected to govern me. And yet do, and I fear I shall spend some time in hell for feeding the wrong people!
Welcome to democracy.
FAR from bringing god into it, I brought the underhanded greasing if voters into it. Sheesh, where did you get the idea of god from the corruption of the political process.
Even if someone did attent one of those churches that got a hand-out, how exactly does that trickle down to the congregation? Have you ever heard of churches giving members of the congregation money? Its always the other way around bo-bo.
it's not your island! if it was, id have to wonder why you're not calling for the deportation of the first and worst and his replacement. Those people cost you more per year than 20 boatloads of people seeking freedom!
Who are you to tell me this is not my island? It is my island, as it was my father's and his father before him. It is my island as much as it is anyone else's who is Caymanian. I have always been an advocate for the deportation of those individuals who would seek to bring our island down. Criminals of non-Caymanian descent and those people who are here illegally have no place here, as far as I am concerned. At the end of the day, I want nothing but the best courses of action for my island and I can only hope that that is indeed what the rest of the country wants as well.
May God bless them and keep them safe.
I cannot imagine what manner of horrors I'd have to endure in order to make a decision to put my family in a terrible excuse for a boat and head out in the open ocean 600-800 miles just for a CHANCE to live.
Not that I don’t care about then Cubans but what happened to all the drugs that washed up on the shores of the Brac last week, I have read anything in the press.. CNS have you heard anything?
Shhhh. Don't let everyone in on it.