Immigration Issue Threatens GOP's Fla. Stronghold

But, Hernandez said, the Coast Guard has gotten more aggressive in policing the border. Cubans have watched in horror as Coast Guard workers tackled Cubans like linebackers when they leapt from boats and made a dash from surf to sand.

Cubans have also been shocked by television footage of Coast Guard cutters bumping rickety handmade craft as refugees wafted toward land, sometimes causing people to tumble out of boats and drown.

Last year, about 2,500 Cubans made it to land, and about 2,800 were captured at sea, according to the Coast Guard.

Still, there has never been anything like the event on Dec. 26, when, in the 4 a.m. darkness, a group of Cubans miraculously bumped into a bridge just as their boat was sinking. Elizabeth Hernandez, 22, who was on the boat with her 2-year-old son, Michael Junior Blanco, had a cell phone.

Around 4:30, Mercedes Hernandez Guerrero picked up her phone in Miami and heard her cousin's voice.

"She was asking for help," Guerrero said. "Their boat was sinking. I told them to stay there. I thought I was helping them. I thought about going out there with a rope."

Guerrero called Ramon Saul Sanchez, the leader of the Democracy Movement, who wanted to help but first asked if the group was part of a smuggling operation. Assured that they were not, Sanchez organized a rescue group and set out on a two-hour drive to their location near Key West.

But the Coast Guard got there first. A Coast Guard cutter spotted the group, plucked them off the bridge and began to process them for repatriation or deportation to a third-party country. About 97 percent of Cubans intercepted at sea are sent home, but 3 percent are accepted by other host countries such as Costa Rica, according to the Cuban American National Foundation, citing Coast Guard and immigration records.

Sanchez organized a demonstration at the gates of the local Coast Guard station and lawyers prepared a lawsuit, arguing that the bridge is part of the United States and is therefore land. Within a few days, the 15 were rushed to Cuba, before the case could go to court.

That is when Sanchez started his hunger strike, and when the governor called the White House, and other politicians got involved. Sanchez's Democracy Movement, whose aggressive philosophy has often collided with that of CANF, united with all Cuban groups.

"Cuba is the most crucial issue that motivates us," Sanchez said. "Each family has been divided."

That includes the families of Guerrero and Mariela Conesa, both of whom are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Guerrero said that her cousin, also a plaintiff, lost her job and her home in Cuba for attempting the trip.

"They must leave," she said, speaking in Spanish. "Today they called them to the Immigration Department for an interview. They will pressure them. They become outcasts. They have no choice but to try to leave again."

The very idea sent shivers down Guerrero's spine as she recalled her own flight from Cuba in a boat, in the dark, 14 years ago.

"It was a very difficult thing," she said, tearing. "I came with my 2-year-old son. I would not want anyone to do that. It's not only the cold; you feel death very close, and even more so when you bring children."

Sanchez made the trip when he was 16, and said he was willing to die of hunger to make the voyage safer for others. He said he wants the committee to ask the Coast Guard to halt its tactics of bumping boats and tackling refugees.

"They are victims in this, too," Sanchez said of the Coast Guard. "They are forced to enforce this inhumane policy."