Ten years after he left Cuba on a raft partly constructed from pieces of a goat pen, Fabricio Gil is disillusioned.

Though he is glad to be in the United States, he is dismayed about the Bush administration's tough new restrictions on travel -- measures that permit him to visit his family in Cuba only once every three years.

It's a blow to Gil, 32, who not only has pictures of his mother in his cubicle at work, but also has loaded images of her and other family members on his computer as a screen saver.

Because Gil just returned from Cuba, he cannot see her and other relatives again until 2007. He doesn't know if his 95-year-old grandmother can wait.

"Your life can change in two seconds," he said. "What can we expect in three years?"

Economics, not politics, drove Gil out of Cuba. He was a painter in Cuba, but it wasn't exactly a steady job. Sometimes there was no paint. At other jobs, no one was around to distribute the materials.

He set off from Havana with five other people on Aug. 22, 1994. Three days later the U.S. Coast Guard found them. After eight months in Guantanamo, he came to Miami. At first, he cleaned floors. Steady wages and overtime were new concepts, but he learned quickly. Today, he works for Xael Charters in Miami, processing visas for travelers to Cuba.

His next goal: becoming a U.S. citizen, so he can have his say in government. "I realized that you do not have to feel regret, you do not have to feel disillusioned," he said. "You have to fight."

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