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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Judge Rules for Cubans Who Got to Bridge (02-28) 18:50 PST MIAMI, (AP) -- A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the U.S. government acted unreasonably when it sent home 15 Cubans who thought they had safely made it to the United States when their boat reached an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys. Judge Federico Moreno ordered the federal government to make its best effort to help the immigrants return to the United States, said Kendall Coffey, an attorney for the Cubans and their relatives. One of the 15 migrants, Elizabeth Hernandez, 23, was celebrating the decision from her family's home in Matanza, Cuba. "I am so happy," she told The Associated Press by telephone Tuesday evening. "I always had hope I would be able to return." It was not known, however, whether President Fidel Castro would allow the Cubans to leave the communist island. Under the federal government's long-standing "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach U.S. soil are generally allowed to stay, while those stopped at sea are sent back. In this case, the U.S. government argued that the old bridge did not count as dry land because chunks of it were missing, and it is no longer connected to U.S. soil. The migrants landed on the pilings along a nearly 3-mile span of the former bridge Jan. 4, as their small boat began to take on water. Had they landed a 100 yards away on the new bridge, the U.S. Coast Guard would likely have allowed them to stay. Ramon Saul Sanchez, head of the Democracy Movement, a Cuban-American advocacy group that also joined in the lawsuit against the government, was pleased with the judge's ruling. "Really, it is a vindication for all immigrants," said Sanchez, who waged an 11-day hunger strike to protest the group's return to Cuba. But the judge made clear that his ruling was limited in scope and not a decision on "the wisdom or lack of wisdom" of the American government's policy, Moreno wrote. A federal prosecutor had argued that the Coast Guard's decision to send the migrants home was reasonable and the judge should defer to it. Moreno stated in his ruling that besides being unreasonable, the Coast Guard's decision was informal and carried less weight than a published opinion. It was unclear whether the government would appeal the ruling. A message left Tuesday for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami was not immediately returned.
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