Family complete incredible journey to US

A Cuban family who desperately tried to make it to the United States by turning their car into a boat, has finally made it – on foot.

Luis Grass twice tried to escape his country by setting sail on the 100-mile stretch of water to Florida in a floating car.

He failed both times when his makeshift vessels were intercepted by coast guards.

But Grass’s determination paid off when he led his wife Isora, 27, and their five-year-old son, Luis, across the Mexican border after an extraordinary 2,000 mile journey.

The family set out from Costa Rica more than a month ago. Their travels took them across jungles, cities and desert.

They encountered snakes, monkeys and “every insect possible” to avoid detection as they travelled without legal papers. The trio walked, hitched and took buses in their quest to reach the US border in Matamoros, Mexico.

They finally surrendered to Texas police on March 16, safe in the knowledge that the government almost always lets Cuban exiles stay as long as they have reached land.

Grass, a mechanical engineer, first tried to cross the Florida Strait in February 2003 after transforming a 1951 Chevy truck into a floating vessel.

The Coast Guard stopped them mid journey, sending them back to Cuba and sinking the vehicle.

“That was very hard to watch,” Grass, 36, told the New York Post. “I just felt worthless. That truck was my escape from Cuba – not just for me, but for my friends, my wife and my son.”

His second attempt, in a modified, bright green 1959 Buick, was also in vain and the family was sent to the US base in Guantanamo Bay. A deal was struck to allow them to stay in San Jose but the family was soon on the road again.

Grass said his sole motivation was a desire to live in the US: “To come to a place where you can work, where your son can study, where you can look forward to tomorrow, where there’s no abuse, where you can have your peace.

“The most important thing of all is freedom,” he said.

The family is staying with Isora’s brother in Miami as they apply for permanent residency and work permits.