Freedom won a victory yesterday with the successful escape of three Cubans who made it to America after jumping off their boat and swimming for three hours. But the Cubans almost didn’t make it. To win their freedom, they first had to avoid the United States Coast Guard, which is required by a Clinton-era law to return any Cuban refugee who doesn’t first make it to shore. So distrusting were the three Cubans of the Coast Guard, that they actually threw back the life preservers the Guard offered to them. A fourth swimmer gave up before making it to Key Largo, was picked up by the Coast Guard, and will most likely be sent back to the Communist regime.

The ordeal of those Cubans is a reminder once again of the flawed thinking behind America’s “wet foot-dry foot” policy, an immigration law mandating that all refugees intercepted on the way to America be returned. That law put America into the position of cooperating with the communists at the expense of the lives of the brave Cuban swimmers.

President Bush deserves to be commended for speaking out against Castro’s imprisonment of political dissenters and for calling for Cuban democracy. But Mr. Bush has stood up for the “wet foot-dry foot policy,” as hundreds of Cubans intercepted by America have been returned to the regime and subsequently thrown in jail. Until Mr. Bush rids the country of this policy, he will only be helping to preserve the regime that he so opposes. And all too few brave swimmers will be able to hold out, get past our Coast Guard, and make it to freedom here on American soil.