| As captain of a U. S. Coast Guard cutter, Chuck was charged with patrolling the Mona Passage separating Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic. Although not Hispanic, he and his wife were very fond of the warm, family-based culture they found in San Juan, where they lived.
While on patrol one day with his crew -- many of whom were of Puerto Rican descent -- an Immigration and Naturalization Service plane radioed a request that his cutter intercept a small boat crossing toward a deserted section of the Puerto Rican coast. Chuck was not surprised. The passage, separating United States territory from an economically depressed nation, is a favored crossing-point for refugees, drug-runners, and would-be illegal aliens.
Making for the boat, Chuck could see that it was filled to the gunwales -- not with terrorists or dealers, but with grandparents and infants. It was heading toward an isolated beach filled with brightly dressed people holding welcoming banners and carrying picnic hampers.
These were families seeking to reunite with their elderly and young. Knowing their keen sense of family, Chuck found his heart going out to them. Yet his constitutional duty was clear: It was his job to prevent individuals from entering the United States illegally by stopping them and returning them to the Dominican Republic.
As Chuck and his crew closed in, the boat crossed a sand bar too shallow for the cutter. Chuck did, however, have an outboard-powered inflatable on board that might stand a chance of catching the small boat. Yet giving chase so close to land, he knew, might cause some of the passengers to panic and try to wade ashore while their boat was still dangerously far from the beach. That concerned him: While his duty was to enforce the law, he also knew that the Coast Guard's job is above all to save life, not to endanger it.
Should he launch the inflatable? Or should he turn away, citing the sand bar as the final impediment to the capture?
What would you do, and why? |
