aa1413: US changes detention policy to discourage Haitian refugees (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

U.S. changes detention policy to discourage Haitian
refugees

By Catherine Wilson
The Associated Press
Posted March 19 2002, 6:28 PM EST

MIAMI -- The Bush administration secretly changed its
detention policy on Haitian refugees in December to
discourage a feared mass exodus from the Caribbean nation,
government attorneys acknowledged in a lawsuit charging
racist treatment.

The Justice Department responded Monday to a discrimination
lawsuit filed on behalf of jailed Haitians by arguing its
decisions cannot be reviewed by any court.











Government attorneys cited ``sound policy and separation of
powers'' between the federal judicial and executive
branches to support their position that the courts should
stay out of the dispute.

Several federal agencies met in Washington after the
grounding of a ship carrying 187 Haitians off Miami on Dec.
3, and the staff at the Miami immigration jail was told of
the policy change Dec. 14.

The Bush administration decided to stop routinely releasing
newly arrived Haitians without approval from Immigration
and Naturalization Service headquarters in Washington, the
government said.

The move was intended ``to discourage further risk-taking
and to avoid an immigration crisis of the magnitude which
existed during the early 1980s and 1990s with the Haitian
and Cuban mass migrations,'' U.S. lawyers said in court
filings.

Ira Kurzban, one of the lawyers who filed the suit, said
Tuesday after reading the government's court filing: ``It's
an unconstitutional policy. They're admitting that they're
engaging in discriminatory conduct.''

Immigrant advocates claimed in the lawsuit that they had
detected a change in the handling of requests by Haitians
for political asylum. They asked for an injunction to stop
the INS from treating Haitians different from asylum
seekers from other nations. A hearing was expected next
week at the earliest.

Of the 187 Haitians on the grounded boat, 20 jumped
overboard and tried to swim to shore. Eighteen escaped and
two are presumed drowned. Their bodies were not recovered.

Of the remaining 167, 165 met the INS standard for asylum -
a credible fear of persecution if returned home. But of
those, only five pregnant women and 10 children who
traveled without their parents have been freed.

More than 95 percent of all refugees who cleared an initial
review for political asylum were released by the INS in
three to five days before the December ship incident,
immigration lawyers said. Since then, Haitians alone are
being detained.

Dan Nelson, a Justice Department spokesman in Washington,
confirmed that another Haitian who flew into Florida is
being held under the new policy, but would not say if there
are any others. The Haitians' lawyers believe dozens of
others are being held.

One day after the Dec. 3 boat grounded off Miami, the INS
issued a statement restating U.S. policy that intercepted
Haitians would be sent home.

Changing the detention policy for U.S. arrivals was deemed
to be ``a reasonable step'' to discourage other illegal
sailings, the government said.

Haiti has been racked by political instability, human
rights abuses and poverty and is the poorest nation in the
Western Hemisphere.

The Bush administration has frozen aid to Haiti and
discourages aid by other nations to force an agreement with
the opposition on new elections in Haiti.







Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel


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