12126: Haitians protest immigration policy during President Bush visit (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitians protest immigration policy during President Bush visit

By Jody A. Benjamin
Staff Writer
Posted May 21 2002

CORAL GABLES · Protester Joseph Gourgue had hoped President Bush might
somehow see this placard: "Mr. President: Haitians need your help too."

But there was little chance Bush saw either the placard or the smattering of
protesters such as Gourgue gathered Monday behind police barricades at a
park. The president's motorcade traveled a different route to a nearby
$25,000-a-plate Republican Party fund-raiser, according to police.

"We wanted him to hear our message directly," said Gourgue, 42, of
Plantation.

Demonstrators speaking out on everything from immigration to Middle East
policy were among those at Ingraham Terrace Park. Organizers, told by police
they could not assemble outside the private home hosting the GOP
fund-raiser, chose the park as the next best location.

But the protesters' only audience was passing rush-hour traffic -- and the
media.

"They put immigrants in the same box with terrorists," shouted protester
Roman Pierre, 57, of Miami. "That's no good."

Haitian community leaders organized the rally in support of an estimated 250
Haitians detained in South Florida since December by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. The asylum seekers are subject to a new INS policy
instituted that month that leaves them detained for the duration of their
months-long asylum application process.

But turnout for the rally was far lower than the hundreds that had been
predicted. About 100 people were gathered at the park by early evening.

Rally organizer Marleine Bastien said the Haitian groups also tried
unsuccessfully to get a meeting with the president on Monday.

"They have been trying to stifle our cry for the past two weeks," said
Bastien, of Haitian Women of Miami. "He met with several Hispanic
organizations, but he didn't meet with any Haitian groups."

On Monday, an attorney representing the detained Haitians said that she will
appeal Friday's federal court decision to throw out a legal challenge to the
detention policy.

"[The judge] gave so much deference to the INS that legal challenges to
immigration decisions are rendered meaningless," said Cheryl Little,
director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, who attended to the
rally. "We have no choice but to appeal."

Jody A. Benjamin can be reached at 954-356-4530 or
jbenjamin@sun-sentinel.com.


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