Cuban docs flee Venezuela, for US

Houston Chronicle:

In his quest to reach the United States, Ariel Perez slipped away from Cuban informants, evaded Venezuelan border guards and kept his distance from Colombian guerrillas.

But Perez, a Cuban physician who fled to Colombia from Venezuela last year, faces one final hurdle: U.S. bureaucrats.

That's because Perez and dozens of other Cuban defectors who have fled from Venezuela have been waiting for months for permission from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota to emigrate to the land of their dreams.

"I want to be free," said Perez, 36, who lives in a slum in the Colombian capital with two other Cuban defectors. "But I don't know how long it will take."

Dispatched by Fidel Castro's government for humanitarian work in exchange for oil and other badly needed supplies, a small but growing number of Cuban medical personnel are using their foreign postings as stepping stones to the U.S.

The Bush administration is encouraging the defections. Last year, the Homeland Security Department, which oversees immigration services, modified rules to speed the doctors' requests for political asylum.

Experts say the number of Cuban health workers abandoning clinics in Venezuela and other countries could rise as word spreads of the U.S.program, which began in August. So far, at least 45 Cubans have made their way to Colombia.

"The floodgates will definitely open," said a spokeswoman for Solidarity Without Borders, a Miami-based group that helps Cuban physicians emigrate. "We've had calls from Cubans as far away as Namibia."

About 360 doctors, dentists and physical therapists have applied under the new Cuban Medical Professional Parole program. About 160 have been accepted, while most other cases are pending, said Ana Carbonell, chief of staff for Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., a longtime advocate for Cuban exiles.

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This is more than 10 percent of the health care workers Castro has sent abroad to promote the evils of socialism. Castro is eager to screw up other countries the way he screwed up Cuba with communism. For the US this is a twofer. We get trained health care professionals who are eager to work here and deny Castro an instrument of his evil foreign policy. We at the same time show the Venezuelans that the communism that is being forced on them by Chavez is being rejected by those who know it best.