The Cuban Refugees Move On

By Ellie McGrath

To Fort Chaffee, with little hope of leaving soon

Shortly after dawn one day last week city workers began pulling down the olive-drab tents under elevated Interstate 95 in downtown Miami. The campsite had temporarily been home to a total of 4,000 Cuban refugees. But Campamento del Rio (River Camp) also had been an eyesore and health menace because of its exposed electrical wiring, plugged storm drains, filthy toilets and tainted food. By sunset, the last tent was down, and the remaining 750 residents had been taken away by bus. Left behind were a dozen Spanish names spray-painted on the thick concrete highway supports.

At Fort McCoy, Wis., scene of repeated fights and homosexual rapes among some of the toughest refugees from Cuba, 120 young men packed their meager possessions in plastic garbage bags, boarded Greyhound buses, and then sat for 4 1/2 hours while repairs were made to their chartered Boeing 737--the only hitch in the evacuation of Fort McCoy. By week's end nearly all 3,000 refugees were gone. Meanwhile, at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation in Pennsylvania, about 2,500 Cubans were loading their belongings into cardboard cartons for a similar journey this week.

Most of the Cubans had a common destination: Fort Chaffee, Ark., where the Carter Administration has decided to consolidate some 10,000 refugees who arrived during the 159-day boatlift and have not yet been settled. The boatlift ended two weeks ago, when Cuban President Fidel Castro closed the port of Mariel. Altogether, 125,262 Cuban men, women and children fled to the U.S. during the boatlift. Most of them quickly began new lives with the help of relatives already in the U.S. and private sponsors. The remainder are chiefly young men with little English or job skills--and little prospect for leaving Fort Chaffee any time soon. Said Art Brill, an official of the State Department's Cuban-Haitian Task Force: "They are beyond the cuddly age, so to speak."

Indeed, as they arrived at the Army base, which is now surrounded by 11-ft. chain-link fences topped by 2-ft. coils of razor-sharp barbed wire, they were told that each would soon receive winter clothing from the Red Cross: a quilted jacket, leather shoes with crepe soles, two plaid flannel shirts, two pairs of thick jeans, gloves and a brightly colored stocking cap. They also found the authorities determined to maintain tight discipline with the help of 1,000 Army guards and 350 civilian officers, most of them from the U.S. Park Police. "El Bulevar," the black market where Cubans gambled and traded clothes and cigarettes all summer, has been shut down. The worst troublemakers have been confined to heavily guarded areas to prevent them from molesting other refugees or escaping.

At the insistence of Arkansas Governor Billy Clinton, the State Department's Cuban-Haitian Task Force will not send more than 10,000 refugees to Fort Chaffee. Any overflow from the other camps is supposed to be sent to Puerto Rico, where 250 Navy Seabees last week were constructing shelters for up to 5,000 refugees at Fort Allen, an old military base 40 miles southwest of San Juan. Puerto Rico has sued to stop the transfer, arguing that Fort Allen has inadequate sewage and water purification plants and antiquated electrical systems.

Puerto Rican officials fear that the Cubans may become as big a headache for them as they were for Miami's Dade County, where many schools may have to hold double sessions to accommodate the children of refugees who settled in the county. Jackson Memorial, the county's only public hospital, is so overcrowded that its maternity ward has put 20 new mothers on stretchers in the halls. Police report that chiefly because of the refugees, the crime rate in Miami's Little Havana has soared: robbery was up 775% and assault up 109% over the previous summer. Dade County jail is jammed with prisoners, many of them refugees.

The task of resettling the remaining refugees has been undertaken by seven private relief agencies, including the U.S. Catholic Conference, which already has aided 55,000 refugees in beginning new lives in the U.S. To help, the Federal Government has increased its resettlement aid from $300 per refugee to as much as $2,000. At Fort Chaffee, the refugees will be given crash English language courses and training in such necessary skills as shopping in American supermarkets. Still, warned David Lewis, who heads the Catholic Conference office at Fort Chaffee, there are no short cuts. Said he: "At the current rate, we will have to continue our work into next year."

Even then, the work will not be over. The charities are only beginning to deal with the problem of refugees who cannot make a success of their new lives. So far, there have been only about 5,000 refugees who have returned to agencies for help, but the number is expected to grow. Even some of the most ambitious Cubans have found the adjustment to the U.S. extremely difficult. One example is Amado Benitez, 29, who found a home in Chicago with his half sister just two days after his arrival in Florida five months ago. A professional welder, Benitez went looking for a job, but he could not find one because of his lack of English and the city's high unemployment. To make matters worse, his immigration papers authorize employment only until Jan. 15. Meanwhile, like most other Cuban refugees, he is ineligible for welfare. Trapped in this legal limbo and unwilling to burden his half sister any longer, Benitez is now sleeping on a cot in an unheated garage, living on earnings from odd jobs and handouts from friends. Says he: "It's starting to get cold."

--By Ellie McGrath, Reported by Steven Holmes/Chicago and Robert C. Wurmstedt/Fort Chaffee

With reporting by Steven Holmes/Chicago, Robert C. Wurmstedt/Fort Chaffee

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