01/15/2008

News / Homeless Cuban exile can't get help

A homeless exile who arrived months after Fidel Castro seized power can't get benefits because he lacks U.S. papers.

Florestán Ors fled to South Florida seven months after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba.

But unlike many of Cuba's early refugees who are now prosperous citizens, Ors is virtually penniless at 71. And, oddly, undocumented.

His bed, he says, has been a concrete ledge beneath a highway bridge, a park or a friend's house. His world: a McDonald's and a Winn-Dixie across from the Flagler Dog Track at Northwest Seventh Street and 37th Avenue, where he spends afternoons watching races or television in the clubhouse and gossiping with track regulars.

Ors is among a growing number of immigrants who, despite having worked for decades in the United States and paid taxes, are shut out of Social Security and other benefits because they are undocumented. Many are homeless.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, no one asked for immigration documents. After that, those wanting to drive in Florida would have to show immigration papers.

NO GREEN CARD

''To get a job, open a bank account, you only had to show your driver's license and that opened all the doors,'' he said. ``But now, they ask you if you are a U.S. citizen and if you say no, then they ask for your green card. Without a green card you can't do anything.''

Ors said he was unable to renew his driver's license after 9/11.

''I led a relatively normal life before 9/11,'' Ors said. ``But 9/11 ended all that. My life changed radically. Before I was able to work, I had my efficiency and then I became homeless.''

Ors is among 40 Cubans and Haitians getting help from the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center because they lack immigration papers and can't unlock their Social Security benefits.

Some, like Ors, lost papers or had them stolen. Others were convicted of crimes and were ordered deported, including several Mariel boatlift refugees in detention who were released under a 2005 Supreme Court order.

Ors' case is all the more remarkable because he comes from a relatively well-known anti-Castro family.

Two cousins, Hector and Pablo Ors, were Cuban Air Force pilots and fought against Castro's rebel army. Pablo died when his plane exploded in 1958 during a bombing run. Hector said he fled Cuba in 1960 and now lives in Miami and sometimes looks after Florestán.

UNUSUAL CASE

The case is also unusual because for the 48 years Ors says he has been in the country, he never sought to legalize his status even though he would qualify for a green card -- like hundreds of thousands of other Cuban refugees.

''I never felt the desire to stay here permanently,'' Ors explained. ``Maybe that's why I never thought about getting a green card. I always tended to see the United States as a temporary place, that eventually I would be returning to Cuba either to fight Fidel Castro or because he had been overthrown and we would be free to go back.''

He never married, never had children, never bought a house, never saved money.

Ors was 23 when he served in the defeated army of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Soon after Castro seized power on Jan. 1, 1959, Ors said, he hid in the mountains and later in a Havana apartment his mother rented as a hide-out.

In the predawn hours of Aug. 18, 1959, Ors said, he and a friend -- a pilot -- sneaked into a military base near the Cuban capital and stole a small plane. Ors would only say the pilot died years ago.

A person familiar with Ors family lore said an alternative explanation is that Florestán was smuggled out on a plane but never paid the pilot several thousand dollars due him. As a result, the story goes, Ors kept a low profile.

Ors challenged that story.

''It's a distortion of what really happened,'' he said, but would not elaborate.

Ors' official arrival notice -- dated Aug. 18, 1959 -- notes he ``entered in a small airplane from Cuba without inspection and admission by a United States Immigration Officer.''

While U.S. officials were already leery of Castro at the time, relations between Cuba and the United States then were normal. There was no Cuban Adjustment Act.

Ors was ordered to appear before a special inquiry officer. He recalls getting a parole document after the Aug. 25, 1959, hearing. Or it could have been a deportation order.

He says he lost the document years ago when three men tried to rob him on the street.

Ors arrived in Miami with $200. He found a job at the port as a stevedore. Later he moved heavy merchandise at warehouses and furniture stores. His last big job was as a driver and delivery man for a Hialeah factory where he moved up to head the shipping department.

By 1990, that business closed and Ors worked for temporary job agencies.

When Ors sought his Social Security benefits by 2001 he learned he needed a green card to qualify.

''One of the requirements to get Social Security benefits is that you are either a citizen of the United States or that you have lawful alien status,'' said Mark Lassiter, a Social Security Administration spokesman.

Ana Santiago, a Miami spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, would not discuss Ors' case because of privacy policies. In general, she said, foreign nationals who have been in the country without immigration documents since 1972 qualify for a green card.

CHANCE FOR PERMIT

Cheryl Little, executive director of the center helping Ors, said he may have a better shot at a green card through the Cuban Adjustment Act. Oscar Alvarez, who is handling the 40 cases, is trying to get Ors a work permit.

Ors carries with him an order of supervision issued in 2003 by the immigration service that requires him to report periodically to immigration authorities and not to travel outside Florida. The order says it replaced an earlier one issued in 1959, that may be based on a 48-year-old deportation order.

Ors has a brother in California but they are not close. A friend lets him use the shower at his home almost every day and he keeps fresh clothes. He seems in relatively good health and his clothes are clean, though wrinkled and frayed. His receding white hair is combed and trimmed.

Ors survives on about $50 a month helping an elderly truck driver load his vehicle and $150 in food stamps he signed up for before 9/11.

He couldn't afford rent by 2003 and moved into a Little Havana motel, thanks to a friend who was the night manager. For about eight months Ors stayed in unoccupied rooms at night. In exchange, he helped clean rooms.

Then his friend died of a heart attack.

Another friend who worked at a park near Miami International Airport stepped in. That friend let Ors spend most nights in the park office.

Sometimes Ors would sleep on a chair in one of the MIA concourses.

Ors's homeless ''comfort'' ended when the park closed for renovations and MIA security tightened.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/379562.html

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 100 | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104 | 105 | 106 | 107 | 108 | 109 | 110 | 111 | 112 | 113 | 114 | 115 | 116 | 117 | 118 | 119 | 120 | 121 | 122 | 123 | 124 | 125 | 126 | 127 | 128 | 129 | 130 | 131 | 132 | 133 | 134 | 135 | 136 | 137 | 138 | 139 | 140 | 141 | 142 | 143 | 144 | 145 | 146 | 147 | 148 | 149 | 150 | 151 | 152 | 153 | 154 | 155 | 156 | 157 | 158