GOP lawmaker urges Bahamas not to repatriate Cuban refugees

The Bahamas decided to send Cuban refugees back to their country, despite pleas from lawmakers and the international community. Panama even offered to take the prisoners, but recent reports have said Bahaman authorities are still planning to send the refugees back to Cuba.

{mosads}Diaz-Balart said Bahaman authorities will “shoulder” the responsibility if the refugees are then abused by Fidel Castro’s “dictatorship.”

“If the Bahamas decides to forcibly repatriate these refugees, it will shoulder responsibility for the inevitable abuses that follow,” Diaz-Balart said. “The humane and just approach cannot include the forced return to the very oppression that these refugees risked their lives to escape.”

Diaz-Balart pledged to work with the Bahamas’ government and the U.S. State Department to try to prevent the prisoner transfer.