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Editor: Rod Sullivan
Profession: Maritime Attorney

Category: Boating Accidents

''The free world never threw anybody back over the Berlin Wall,'' said U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart about an incident where a Homeland Security "Go fast" boat rammed the side of a 15 foot wooden boat carrying ten refugees from Cuba, about 2 miles from a Miami beach. The incident was captured by television cameras.

A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement called the ramming incident "inadvertent'" but it came after repeated attempts to throw a line into the boat's propeller, and to otherwise coax the refugees to give themselves up. The ramming threw four of the refugees into the water. None of them appears to have been seriously hurt.

As contradictory as it may sound, if the United States had intended to ram the boat and injure the refugees, the government wouldn't be liable if they were injured. Why? It is because of sovereign immunity. While the United States has waived its sovereign immunity for negligent or "inadvertent" accidents under laws called the Federal Tort Claims Act, the Suits in Admiralty Act, and the Public Vessels Act, it is still immune from liability for its intentional acts. Consequently, the Immigration and Customs spokesman would likely change his tune if any of the refugees had been hurt.