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CWS Miami expands services to "rafters"
Eduardo Murgado
Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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Over the summer, the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program's Miami Office took on an additional step in the reception of Cubans who reach Florida by boat. Previously, the U.S. Border Patrol would take new arrivals to the Krome Service Processing Center for a day or two, where they would get their I-94s, then be released to the CWS Miami Office for orientation and casework.
The U.S. Border Patrol still brings new arrivals to its Marathon station in the Florida Keys to interview, photograph, and fingerprint them. Groups of 20 or more are transported to the Pembroke Pines Border Patrol Station, where they are processed and taken for health screening before being sent on to the CWS Miami Office.
But now, when a group of 20 or fewer Cubans arrives, the U.S. Border Patrol alerts the new Marathon-based joint project of CWS and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). A project staff person meets the new arrivals at the Marathon station with sandwiches, water, and clean, dry clothes.
"Cubans arrive on everything from speedboats to makeshift rafts, and typically spend anywhere from eight hours to three days at sea," said Eduardo Murgado, a caseworker for the Cuban-Haitian Program. "Many arrive badly sunburned, hungry, and dehydrated."
The staff person offers a brief orientation and arranges transport straight to the CWS Miami Office – or, if interviews conclude late at night, secures hotel rooms in Marathon for the night. While the new arrivals are still on their way to Miami, CWS Miami Office staff begin notifying family members and identified potential free cases.
"We give clients appointments for the Health Department and the CWS or USCCB processing department, then release them to their sponsor," Murgado said. "Free cases are given additional clothing and food vouchers, taken to a hotel, then processed the next day and given the out-of-state orientation before going on to one of the CWS local resettlement agencies in the Cuban-Haitian Program."
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