An attorney for 13 Cuban detainees argued Tuesday they have a constitutional right to petition for political asylum before being sent back to the homeland they fled in the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Lee Ochoa of Miami, an attorney for 13 of 15 Cubans convicted of crimes ranging from burglary to first-degree murder, told U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon that some of the Cubans were afraid to go home because they did not know how they would be treated by Fidel Castro's government. Clemon said he will rule Monday on whether to allow the Immigration and Naturalization Service to fly the 13 back to Cuba. Clemon said he wanted to give attorneys for the Cubans time to support their request for a preliminary order blocking the deportation. The INS on Nov. 17 notified 15 Cubans at at the Federal Correctional Institution at Talladega that they would be deported within 72 hours. However, the next day the government promised Clemon it would not send them home until their attorneys had a chance to study their files. Leo Ochoa of Miami, attorney for 13 of the 15, told Clemon that they have a constitutional right to petition for political asylym and to due process. ``In this country we want to do things fairly and properly,'' Ochoa said. But Lauri Fillppu of the INS said that the Cubans' only claim for asylum is that they might be harmed in Cuba. He said the 11th U.S. Circuit Court in Atlanta already had rejected that argument. Fillppu questioned what he called ``a last-minute tactic'' by the Cubans, claiming there was no new evidence.
