Court to decide fate of Mariel Cubans

The Supreme Court yesterday said it would decide whether hundreds of Cuban criminal aliens and other convicted immigrants who have completed their U.S. prison terms can be held indefinitely when they represent a danger to the community or their home countries refuse to repatriate them.

More than 2,000 criminal aliens are currently being detained by federal authorities, based on Justice Department arguments that they are too much of a risk to be released.

Most are part of an influx into this country of Cuban criminals from Port Mariel in 1980, when Fidel Castro temporarily lifted restrictions against leaving the island and released hardened convicts and others from Cuban jails and mental hospitals in what has become known as the Mariel boat lift.

The Cuban government has refused to permit their return and, as a result, about 1,750 Mariel Cubans still remain in federal detention because of their danger to the community. In addition, the governments of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have refused to repatriate citizens who have been ordered to be deported from the United States.

The case will be argued in April, with a ruling before July.

The Justice Department has argued that their continued detention is necessary in the wake of the September 11 attacks on America and the ongoing war on terrorism. In 2001, the high court said it was unconstitutional to detain legal immigrants who had served time for crimes for more than six months.

The high court will review the Justice Department concerns in a case involving Daniel Benitez, now 45, who fled Cuba with thousands of other people in 1980. Benitez was convicted and sent to prison in Florida for armed robbery, burglary and battery, finishing his term in 2001. He remains in custody under a 1996 law that extends the jail time for those facing deportation if the attorney general determines they are dangerous or will try to avoid being deported.

Benitez has applied for legal residency, but was turned down because of his criminal record in Florida.

Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson told the court that forcing the release of immigrants “creates an obvious gap in border security that could be exploited by hostile governments or organizations that seek to place persons in the United States for their own purposes.”