By CORALIE CARLSON
Associated Press Writer

MIAMI -- Nearly 1,000 imprisoned Cuban refugees from the 1980 Mariel boatlift are waiting to be released now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the indefinite detention of illegal migrants was unconstitutional.

The Department of Homeland Security said it was too soon to determine when the immigrants would be released. But some advocates were pressing for a speedy release.

"This case has been pending for a long time so there's no reason why they should feel unprepared to take action to comply to the Supreme Court decision," said Christine Stebbins Dahl, an attorney who represented one of the prisoners in the case.

The Supreme Court case involved two men who were part of the Mariel exodus, in which Cuban President Fidel Castro sent criminals and psychiatric patients to the United States along with thousands of other fleeing Cubans. They fled from the Cuban port of Mariel.

In 2001, the high court ruled that it was unconstitutional to detain legal immigrants who had completed their criminal sentences for more than a "reasonable period," generally six months.

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Wednesday that the same standard should apply to illegal immigrants.

Government records show that about nearly 3,000 illegal immigrants are in prison. More than half of them, including 920 Cubans from the Mariel boatlift, have been held longer than six months, some much longer. The ruling means those detainees now must be released.

"These individuals have finally found freedom," said Alfredo Mesa, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation. "It's long overdue."

The immigrants are primarily being held in jails in Florida and New Jersey, said Manny Van Pelt, spokesman for Homeland Security.

Once released, they would likely return to the areas where they had settled before their incarceration, including many to South Florida.

George Fowler, general counsel for the Cuban American National Foundation, said people should be concerned about some hardened criminals being let out on the streets.

He agreed that the illegal migrants should not be detained in the United States -- but said they should be in Cuban prisons instead.

Stebbins Dahl said the detained Mariel Cubans are now in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and less likely to commit additional crimes.

She said many of them would serve probation terms under the criminal system and they would all be monitored by immigration officers. If the Cuban government agreed to accept them, they would be deported.

Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press