About 200 Cuban doctors serving on aid mission Barrio Adentro defected
in 2009 to the United States
After bribing Venezuelan and Cuban staff who work as immigration
officers at Maiquetía airport (16 miles north of Caracas), seven Cuban
doctors serving on aid mission Barrio Adentro arrived Wednesday in Miami.
The defectors, who were seeking to fly to Miami, were briefly detained
at the airport, and paid USD 5,200 to have their passports stamped and
be allowed to board a flight bound to the United States. "We collected
money among the seven doctors who were detained and we finally managed
to travel," Jesús Peralta, 26, one of the defectors, told El Nuevo
Herald newspaper.
The group of three women and four men were held by the US Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while they regularize their situation.
The other defectors, besides Peralta, are physicians Lorenzo Toriza,
Yessenia Martínez and Jesús Badillo.
Peralta and Toriza said that they were held when they were trying to
board an American Airlines flight at 6 am on Tuesday. They explained
that after being interrogated by officials of the Cuban Embassy in
Caracas, who "subjected them to psychological pressure for more than 12
hours," they were released. When the group of physicians returned to the
airport to try to leave the country, the officers asked them if they had
enough dollars to pay the stamping of passports.
"Depending on how you behave concerning the bribes, they allow you to
leave or they arrest you," said Keiler Moreno, in Miami. Moreno defected
in August.
Cuban doctors bribed officials to defect via Venezuela - Daily News - EL
UNIVERSAL (8 January 2010)
http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/01/08/en_pol_esp_cuban-doctors-bribed_08A3266017.shtml
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