Cuban exiles called for President Bush to end the U.S. 'wet-foot, dry-foot' policy after the return of 15 migrants plucked off an out-of-use bridge in the Florida Keys.

BY OSCAR CORRAL AND LARRY LEBOWITZ

Had the desperate Cubans grabbed hold of the bridge just a a few yards away, they might have made it to freedom. Instead, the 15 plucked off an out-of-use bridge in the Florida Keys were shipped back to Cuba on Monday because of the federal government's strict interpretation of U.S.-Cuba immigration policy.

The decision is the latest example of the nuances in the controversial ''wet-foot, dry-foot'' policy initiated by the Clinton administration in 1995 and continued by his Republican successor. For South Florida's heavily Republican Cuban exile community, it may be the last straw.

From the likes of members of Congress and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, the cry for President George W. Bush to change a policy that generally returns migrants caught at sea and allows those who touch land to stay has reached fever pitch.

Republican U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez said the repatriation ``shows the complete and utter failure of the wet-foot, dry-foot policy.''

''Because they reached an old bridge and not a new bridge there's a judgment they didn't reach American soil?'' Martinez said in a written statement. ``The semantics used to return these men and women -- who have risked so much to reach freedom and are now returned to an uncertain future -- are an embarrassment.''

The Coast Guard found the Cubans, who included four women and two children, Thursday on a section of the old Flagler Bridge that is no longer in use and runs parallel to the Seven Mile Bridge. That portion is not connected to land because parts of the bridge are missing.

The decision to repatriate the Cubans was made by the Coast Guard's legal office in conjunction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and possibly other federal agencies, said Coast Guard Lt. Gene Maestas, a Washington spokesman. The migrants, the Coast Guard said in a statement, ``were determined to be feet-wet and processed in accordance with standard procedure.''

CUBAN GROUPS REACT

Cuban-Americans angry about the repatriation vow to put the Bush administration on notice:

• The Cuban American National Foundation plans to form a coalition of exile organizations to travel to Washington to lobby the president to review the policy.

• Ramón Saúl Sánchez, a well-known anti-Castro activist, says he will starve himself to death unless the government reviews the policy.

• Reps. Lincoln Díaz-Balart and Mario Díaz-Balart are calling on the president to revoke the policy -- as is the Miami mayor, who rarely weighs in on federal immigration issues.

• Lawyers for the family of the Cubans plan to pursue a lawsuit against the government in an effort to get a federal court to define what constitutes U.S. territory.

''We think that this action taken by the Coast Guard was done to further erode the ability of Cubans to seek freedom in the United States,'' said Wilfredo Allen, one of the lawyers representing the family members of the repatriated Cubans.

For family members, the news that relatives had been sent back delivered an emotional blow.

''This country can't violate its laws,'' said Aracely Hernandez, 31, the aunt of migrant Elizabeth Hernandez, 23, who left from Matanzas with her husband and son. ``We feel very deceived.''

Another family member, Mercedes Hernandez, said she received a call from Elizabeth when she arrived early Thursday and that Elizabeth told her she was under a bridge somewhere. She could not explain how Elizabeth made the call.

''She said the boat they were on ran out of gas and they rowed several miles. They got off the boat because it was taking on water, and the water was cold,'' Mercedes Hernandez said.

A TEARFUL GATHERING

Raw emotions punctuated a news conference Monday outside the Freedom Tower in downtown Miami. Several family members of the Cubans who were sent back donned tissues and handkerchiefs to wipe away tears.

Francisco ''Pepe'' Hernandez, president of the Cuban American National Foundation, said his group is putting together a coalition of exile groups to lobby the president. He said President Bush promised Cuban Americans that he would review immigration policy but has not followed through.

''If I am president, my administration will conduct a thorough review of all Clinton-Gore executive decisions with respect to Cuba, including those regarding immigration policy,'' Bush wrote to Lincoln Díaz-Balart in a letter during his campaign in 2000.

REVIEW POSSIBLE

There are signs that the ''wet-foot, dry-foot'' policy could be reviewed in coming weeks. Last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the administration would again convene a Cabinet-level commission to revise overall U.S. policy on Cuba and issue a report by May.

The review of policy comes at a time when migration is on the rise. Last year, there were almost twice as many Cubans intercepted at sea as in 2004 -- the most since 1994, when a rafter crisis prompted the Clinton administration to adopt the current policy.

The 15 were among 67 Cubans repatriated by the Coast Guard to Bahia de Cubanas on Monday.

The state of Florida still owns the abandoned bridge at the center of the immigration dispute, said Gus Pego, director of operations for the Florida Department of Transportation division that maintains roads and bridges in the Keys.

Most of the bridges were bought by the state from Henry Flagler after the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 decimated the Florida East Coast Railroad to Key West.

The turn-of-the-century spans became surplus in the mid-1980s when the state completed $200 million in new highway bridges linking the county of islands.

''What the U.S. government did today is illegal, arbitrary and insensitive to this community,'' said Sánchez, who began a hunger strike Saturday. ``They come to us when they need our votes but forget about us when we need their help. I'd rather die a thousand times than see all this arbitrariness and remain silent.''