Cuban Mental Patients Will Be First Deportees : Second Planeload May Contain Atlanta Prison Inmates, INS Official Says
ATLANTA — The first planeload of Cubans to be deported will include many of the 99 patients housed at a mental hospital in Washington, D.C., an immigration official said Wednesday.
Louis Richard, district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Atlanta, said that the second planeload probably will include some of the 1,487 refugees detained at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
“The first group will be from St. Elizabeths,†Richard said. “How many and what numbers has not been released, but I am not aware of anyone at the pen who will be on the first planeload.â€
Under an accord reached Dec. 14 between the Reagan Administration and the Cuban government, the deportations can begin as early as Friday, but Richard said it is likely that the first plane will not leave until the end of the month.
Officials say that the 2,746 Cubans to be deported nationwide were sent to the United States by Cuban President Fidel Castro to empty the island nation’s prisons and mental hospitals.
Up to 100 refugees a month will be taken from prisons and mental hospitals throughout the United States and flown to Cuba. In return, Cuba will allow as many as 20,000 new refugees a year to immigrate to this country.
The deportations have been fought by attorneys for the Cubans, who maintain that they will be persecuted in Cuba.
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