Wet Foot/Dry Foot

That's the absurd policy started by the Clinton administration in the mid-90s to try to handle the mass exodus of Cubans leaving the island at the time. It once again reared it's ugly head today.

The absurdity of it is easy to understand. It sends the message to Cubans to go ahead and risk it. If you make it to land, you're free to stay. If we stop you an inch from the beach, you go back.

Sounds like a game kids play in the playground, not a national policy.

Proponents of the policy say it is a compromise solution. If you let everyone who leaves Cuba into the country, you risk a mass exodus like never before. Sending everyone back goes against our policy which treats Cuban migrants as political refugees.

So we're left with this assinine compromise.

Do people really think that the current policy deters people from attempting to cross the Straits? Think again.

Millions cross over illegally from Mexico, despite bolstered policing of the border, but a relative few can't make it from a totalitarian and brutal regime such as Cuba's on dinky boats and rafts unless they make it to land undetected, despite their status as political (legal) refugees.

Doesn't make sense, does it?