Word: gitmo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Haitians and 30,000 Cubans were intercepted at sea and delivered to hastily erected camps in Guantanamo. Among the refugees were 321 unaccompanied Cuban children, all of whom have since have been paroled to the U.S. But of the 356 unaccompanied Haitian children who ended up at Gitmo, only 22 have been admitted to the U.S., because they needed medical attention or had a parent already in the States. Since the island has officially returned to democratic rule, immigration officials say, Haitians don't qualify for humanitarian parole. Some of these children were orphaned in Haiti...
...Gitmo it is, and never mind that shipping the Cubans there is the ultimate in stopgap solutions. "It's a day-by-day situation, and that's how we're looking at it," acknowledges a top White House aide. Another Administration official declines to discuss how stashing the fugitives at Guantanamo might fit into any long-term policy toward Cuba. Says he: "We're focused now on the immediate problem -- handling the refugees." Nor will anyone speculate just how long the Cubans might have to stay in Guantanamo. The standard answer is "Indefinitely," but does that mean months? Years? Until...
...neither an easy nor a cheap policy to carry out. Expanding facilities to house up to 65,000 refugees -- 14,000 Haitians already camped at Gitmo plus as many as 51,000 Cubans, of whom nearly 14,000 were in residence by Saturday -- will cost $100 million for openers, the Pentagon estimates. Keeping them in food, water and other "consumables" will take an additional $20 million a month. That spending would come on top of $230 million the U.S. has already shelled out since last Oct. 1 to care for the Haitian refugees...
...refugees do not want to talk about anything but their burning desire to get out of Gitmo and be united with family members in the U.S. The visiting journalists were mobbed by people begging them to accept tiny slips of paper or bits of Kleenex boxes scrawled with names and numbers. "Call my mother," refugees pleaded. "Please let my uncle know I'm O.K." They do not even want to talk about what they will do if they have to stay in Guantanamo for good, and refuse to believe that will happen. Says Lazaro Rubio, a 30- year-old sculptor...
...They had agreed earlier to take some Haitians, but the U.S. found it unnecessary to send any.) As loudly as the U.S. proclaims that it will never let any of those interned in Guantanamo enter the American mainland, many Cubans preparing to flee, as well as those already in Gitmo, refuse to believe it. Others might even prefer camp life with three meals a day in Guantanamo to hunger in Cuba...