a1903: Haitian advocates, Rep. Meek meet to push for release of asylum-seekers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Apr. 30, 2002

Haitian advocates, Rep. Meek meet to push for release of asylum-seekers
BY ELAINE DE VALLE
edevalle@herald.com

One woman says she was beaten and raped by a local leader of Haiti's ruling
Lavalas party after she campaigned for the opposition.

Another recounts being chased by a progovernment mob armed with machetes.

A member of a religious group says Lavalas members shot at his house after a
journalist broadcast an interview in which he said Haiti was not ``a true
democracy.''

They are among more than 240 Haitians currently held indefinitely -- and
illegally, according to advocates -- while their asylum cases are
considered.

Last year, many of them likely would have been released on parole while
their asylum claims were reviewed. But after a Dec. 3 voyage that brought
ashore 187 refugees, two of whom drowned before rescuers could arrive, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service changed its practice to discourage a
mass exodus from the Caribbean nation.

Six attorneys who filed a federal lawsuit last month to demand their release
say the new policy is unconstitutional. On Monday, they were joined by
Haitian, African-American, Asian and Cuban community leaders at the district
office of U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek to demand the release of all Haitians with a
credible fear of persecution while their petitions are considered.

''This here is a cross section of the community, people from all walks of
life -- all races, ethnicities, religions,'' Meek said. ``We want justice
for Haitian refugees. We want to call on INS to immediately stop dragging
their feet.''

ALL SUSCEPTIBLE

Said Jorge Mursuli, the new Florida director of People for the American Way
Foundation, a civil rights group: ``If it can happen to some, it can happen
to all of us.''

Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center,
said the refugees' rights to due process and equal treatment under the law
have been violated and that it's difficult for them to work on their
petitions from behind bars. She says all of the refugees in the class-action
suit have passed a preliminary threshold of credible fear of persecution if
they return to Haiti.

OFFER OF ASSISTANCE

Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, president of Barry University and a longtime
refugee advocate, made public her offer last week to provide housing and
other needs for the refugees, particularly the women and children. In 1982,
Barry stepped up for more than 300 Haitians who needed a sponsor to assure
the INS that they would not become wards of the state.

''It seems that history is repeating itself and our Haitian brothers and
sisters are once more wrongly incarcerated,'' O'Laughlin said.

''These are not terrorists. These are not people who will harm this country.
These are people who need to be free. They are behind bars that bar them,''
she said, pausing to collect herself, ``from human consolation and the right
to ask for freedom.''

The attorneys' case hinges on a 1985 Supreme Court ruling barring the INS
from using race and national origin as criteria for determining parole.

But INS officials have acknowledged, in a motion responding to the lawsuit,
that this change of rules applies to Haitians only.

COURT STATEMENT

Peter Michael Becraft, acting deputy INS commissioner in Washington, said as
much in a statement filed with the court in March.

''In the wake of this sharp increase in dangerous maritime departures from
Haiti,'' Becraft wrote, ''adjusting the INS's parole criteria'' would be a
''reasonable step'' to discourage future trips.

But many of the advocates and community leaders Monday said there was ''no
evidence'' of a mass exodus despite chronic political turmoil since disputed
legislative elections in May 2000, in which the opposition accuses President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Party of stifling dissent



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