Two Priests Convicted In Cuban Boatlift Trial
Episcopal News Service. December 3, 1981 [81322]
MIAMI -- Federal efforts to crack down on heinous crime won a boost in November when two Episcopal priests were convicted in federal court here for actions that resulted in reuniting more than 400 refugees with their families.
The Rev. Joe Doss and the Rev. Leopold Frade were convicted of violating a 1917 Trading with the Enemy law and could be sentenced to ten years in prison and fined $50,000. Their crime was to take a small ship to Mariel harbor in Cuba and return to the States with 402 refugees who have all since been resettled, usually with their own families here. Their action took place after President Carter had ordered the boatlift ended in the spring of 1980.
From the beginning of this highly selective prosecution, the government has made it clear that Doss and Frade were to be made an example so that others -- especially clergy -- should not "go and do likewise." Early efforts to indict the two, as well as a Methodist colleague, the ship captain and an attending nurse, on charges of smuggling illegal aliens failed and the final trial jury refused to impose a conviction of conspiracy on the group.
Staff members of the U.S. Attorney's office in Miami dusted off the World War-I-vintage trading act and, once it could be established that Cuba was an "enemy" within the meaning of the act, conviction became virtually certain. There was no question but that the group had purchased food and fuel while in Cuba.
Doss and Frade, rector and curate of a New Orleans parish deeply committed to Hispanic ministry, were heavily involved with the Cuban air and boatlift almost from the time the gates were opened in early 1980. Working with grants from the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief and the support of the Southeast Florida and Louisiana bishops, the pair were instrumental in bringing in Cubans through chartered flights.
Their trouble began when they were able to acquire a converted World War II naval auxiliary vessel and began to outfit it for a trip to Cuba just as the tide of refugees was at the flood.
The order rescinding the welcome to Cuban refugees left the group with a moral dilemma. They were not going just to get people off the beaches, but specific persons whose kin in the States had wanted them here and were committed to sponsoring them. Knowing the risks -- the Carter signals were clear -- they decided to proceed anyway. "We knew what we were doing was illegal," Frade told a reporter after the conviction, "but we honestly did not believe we would be prosecuted."
Intensive lobbying by the Church failed to dim the government's zeal which was expressed by a spokesman for Attorney General W.F. Smith who said, "We cannot and will not tolerate another Mariel. Any successful prosecution relayed to Mariel would carry the message of this administration: Immigration laws cannot be ignored."
From the beginning, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin has taken a personal interest in the case and repeatedly voiced his personal support of the men and his "regret" over the government course.
At its annual meeting this year, the House of Bishops declared that the two "had acted in the highest humanitarian manner -- consistent with Christian principle," and urged that the charges be dropped. Their statement was the core of a telegram to Smith backed by a wide range of elected Church leaders including Dr. Charles R. Lawrence and Dean David Collins, president and vice president of the House of Deputies.