The fate of Cubans who rigged a car into a makeshift boat has put President Bush in another political bind with exiles.

  BY PETER WALLSTEN

  The case of the Cubans who rigged an old Buick to cross the Florida Straits in their quest for freedom -- but who could face being returned to the island -- has put
  President Bush back in a political bind with exile leaders just nine months before the election.

  The pressure mounted Monday as a federal judge deferred ruling on whether he has jurisdiction to intervene in efforts to bring three of the migrants into the country.
  Everyone remained in limbo aboard a Coast Guard ship, though it appeared that eight others were at risk of being sent back to Cuba at any moment.

  ''It's not an easy situation,'' conceded state Rep. Gaston Cantens, a Cuban-American lawmaker who is on the president's reelection team in Florida. ``It makes all of us
  uncomfortable, and we certainly want anyone that is genuinely seeking freedom to be able to accomplish that.''

  The Buick case mirrors a similarly high-profile attempt last year by three of the same refugees to reach Florida aboard a floating Chevy pickup. That journey was cut short when the Coast Guard sank the truck and sent the Cubans back to the island, fueling criticism from some exile circles that the administration had not followed through on promises to revamp immigration policies.

  The Bush administration came under particular fire last year -- including from the president's own brother, Gov. Jeb Bush -- after it sent 12 Cuban boat hijacking suspects back to the island under an agreement with Fidel Castro's government that they would not face the death penalty, a move that resulted in several leading Cuban-American state legislators signing a letter suggesting that the president risked losing political support.

  HEAVY SUPPORT

  More than 80 percent of the 400,000 Cuban-Americans who voted in 2000 backed Bush, helping win the election by the slimmest of margins.

  With White House strategists once again eyeing the importance of Florida's 27 electoral votes, Bush unveiled a series of promises in October to crack down harder on
  Havana and showcase his opposition to Castro's rule.

  CRITICISM

  But critics say the administration's tentative approach to the latest episode -- putting the car-boat migrants in limbo and looking to a court for guidance -- suggests the
  White House is afraid of enduring further criticism at a time that his overall approval rating has been dropping.

  ''They're nervous and they don't know what to do,'' said Joe Garcia, executive director of the influential Cuban American National Foundation and one of the most vocal critics of Bush's Cuba policies.

  ``They've got these guys sitting in the ocean, and it's completely political.''

  Garcia and other critics say Bush has not fulfilled his promise of rewriting the so-called ''wet foot, dry foot'' policy that dictates whether Cubans can stay in the U.S. or be returned.

  But a White House spokesman on Monday defended the president's approach to Cuba in general and migration specifically, saying that politics was not at issue in the
  question over what to do with the car-boaters.

  ''The United States continues to seek to transform the historic pattern of irregular and dangerous Cuban boat departures into a safe, legal and orderly migration flow,'' said White House spokesman Taylor Gross.

  ON DEFENSIVE

  As the administration played defense once again on its immigration policies, a well-timed visit to Miami by Treasury Secretary John Snow on Monday won headlines on
  another front that is important to exile leaders: the travel-to-Cuba ban.

  Snow on Monday announced a series of crackdowns on businesses accused of fostering travel to Cuba -- a move that Treasury officials said was planned long in advance but that critics suggested was designed to distract attention from the seafaring refugees.

  Additional pressure on the president is coming from some in his own party who are running for the U.S. Senate and are courting the largely Republican Cuban-American voting bloc in a competitive primary.

  Former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum issued a statement last week hailing the courage of the Buick riders and calling on the administration to reevaluate the immigration
  policies.

  Even former U.S. Housing Secretary Mel Martinez, a Cuban-American who helped lead the commission appointed by Bush in October to review Cuba policies and who left the administration to run for the Senate, said Monday that he hopes none of the car-boaters are sent back.

  ''The kind of imagination these people have shown probably has won them, if not the legal status, the heart and minds of Americans, and it's almost a little bit of a special case,'' Martinez said in an interview.

  ``Your heart just melts for them, and I would say any way possible to give these folks a break would be a good thing.''

  For all of the recent tumult, however, it's not clear that the president will lose Cuban-American votes this year.

  POLL RESULTS

  A poll conducted for the Cuban Study Group, a committee of moderate business leaders that encourages increased communication between Cubans on the island and in the U.S., shows many Cuban Americans feel that Bush has broken promises he made during the 2000 campaign and since then.

  But, according to the pollster, Sergio Bendixen, who has worked for Democratic candidates in the past, the vast majority of Cuban Americans continue to say they will vote for Bush again.

  ''By and large we don't see one iota of erosion of support for the president,'' said Carlos Saladrigas, the group's chairman.

  ``Most people balance everything out and say this president has had a very good record on Cuba.''