US recession, enforcement cut Cuban boat migrants

MIAMI (Reuters) - Improved enforcement and the economic downturn have sharply cut the number of Cuban migrants trying to reach the United States this year by sea across the Florida Straits, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Wednesday.

Coast Guard figures for the 2009 fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 showed that 799 Cubans were intercepted, compared to 2,199 for 2008 and 2,868 for 2007. The 90-mile-wide (140 km) Florida Straits are a major transit route for migrants from communist-ruled Cuba trying to reach the United States.

A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman told Reuters the sharp drop was being attributed to improved U.S. measures against illegal migration and the economic recession in the United States and Cuba, which had acted as a damper on migrant smuggling.

Lieutenant Commander Matt Moorlag said the Coast Guard and other U.S. agencies had improved their cooperation in fighting the illegal sea traffic of Cuban migrants heading for Florida.

U.S. courts were prosecuting more alien migrant smugglers and handing out tougher sentences to those convicted, Moorlag said.

"We believe that enforcement aspect is a major contributor to the decline," Moorlag said.

Moorlag said the economic downturn that gripped both the United States and Cuba also depressed the migrant-smuggling business, in which traffickers had been demanding rates of $10,000 per person and more.

"Smugglers are interested in profit, it's not a community service, they're doing this for the money," said Moorlag, adding that would-be Cuban migrants, or their relatives in Florida, might not now have the money to pay for the trip.

In addition, the economic downturn may have dimmed the attraction of the United States as a migrant destination.

In July, U.S. and Cuban officials held their first talks since 2003 on Cuban migration to the United States, in a sign of efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama's administration to improve relations with the Caribbean island that have been hostile for half a century.

Last held in 2003 and suspended by Washington in 2004, the talks covered mid-1990s migration accords that aimed to prevent an exodus of Cuban refugees to the United States such as the 1980 Mariel boatlift and another wave of boat people in 1994.

The accords established the repatriation by U.S authorities of Cuban migrants intercepted at sea, while Havana also pledged to clamp down on illegal migration.

The United States wants Cuba to free up legal travel by Cubans granted U.S. visas. Cuba wants the United States to change laws and policies it says encourages illegal migration bids by its citizens.

Obama has slightly eased the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, but has called on the island's leaders to respond by allowing more political freedom and releasing detained dissidents. Cuban President Raul Castro has ruled out any shift to capitalism.

(Reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Jim Loney; Editing by Will Dunham)