12531: Cheryl Little Interviewed by Sun-Sentinel Editorial Writer Deborah Ramirez (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Sun-Sentinel


Cheryl Little Interviewed by Sun-Sentinel Editorial Writer Deborah Ramirez
Published July 14, 2002


About 200 Haitians who have requested asylum in the United States are being
held in detention centers and jails in South Florida while their
applications are pending. The federal government maintains the policy was
put into place to prevent a massive exodus of Haitians to South Florida.

Last week, Little traveled with a delegation of local business and political
leaders to Washington to lobby the White House and INS Commissioner James
Ziglar on the Haitians' behalf.

Q. What's wrong about this policy?

A. Well, I believe it is both illegal and immoral. Illegal because our
government has singled out one particular group based on their race and/or
national origin. The government has acknowledged that after the Dec. 3
boatload of Haitians were brought to shore by the Coast Guard, they were
concerned about a mass exodus [from Haiti]. In order to deter them from
coming and risking their lives on the high seas, they were going to detain
these Haitians during the course of their asylum proceedings.

Q. What's so bad about that?

A. Our laws require us to protect refugees and asylum seekers. As long as
these laws are in place, we need to assure that asylum seekers like the
Haitians have due process and equal protection. We're not asking that
Haitians get special treatment. We're only asking that they get fair and
equal treatment.

Q. How are non-Haitian asylum seekers treated?

A. They continue to be released at a very high rate. For example, from Dec.
1, 2001, to Feb. 15, 2002, the INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service]
released non-Haitian asylum seekers at a rate of 91 percent.

The Coast Guard reported interdicting 481 Ecuadorans in February 2002,
following a three-month period of which there were no interdictions of
Ecuadorans. The INS didn't indicate that there was imminent mass migration
of Ecuadorans. And indeed, every Ecuadoran asylum seeker in the "credible
fear" process who arrived between November 2001 and March 2002 has been
released after passing his or her credible fear interview.

Q. What about asylum seekers coming from Arab and other Muslim countries?

A. Interestingly, after Sept. 11, there were a number of asylum seekers from
the Middle East at Krome [Detention Center in west Miami-Dade County] who
had passed their credible fear interviews who weren't being released. It was
our understanding that they had been cleared by the FBI. After we stopped
releasing the Haitians, most of those asylum seekers from the Middle East
were released.

Day in and day out, these Haitians are seeing asylum seekers of other
nationalities quickly come and go. It's extremely demoralizing for them.

Q. What's the status of these Haitians?

A. There are about 200 Haitian asylum seekers in detention in the Miami
district today. They have all convinced asylum officers they have a credible
fear of persecution upon return to Haiti.

Q. What does credible fear of persecution mean?

A. It means you have a substantial likelihood of proving your eligibility
for asylum.

Q. What are some of the things that constitute a credible fear of
persecution that would get someone beyond that first stage?

A. Generally, the Haitian asylum applicant has a fairly lengthy interview
with an asylum officer who asks a number of different questions regarding
his or her identity and the reasons why they fled. And then the asylum
officer follows up on some of that information and makes a determination as
to whether the applicant has met the credible fear test.

Q. So what's the problem?

A. Most Haitians who flee are intercepted by the Coast Guard and forcibly
repatriated. What happened here, in my view, is that the Coast Guard rescued
this boatload of Haitians, brought them to shore, which then provided them
with the opportunity to apply for political asylum and our government hit
the panic button.

Q. Are we seeing an equal number of Cubans and Haitians coming in from time
to time, and does the panic button only go off with the Haitians?

A. Well, it's my experience that the panic button goes off a lot more with
the Haitians than just about any other group. In fact, there were a number
of lawsuits successfully filed in the 1980s and 1990s on behalf of Haitians
who were discriminated against by government officials.

The government in the current case claimed that they are concerned that the
Haitian exodus could rival that of the Cuban Mariel exodus and the exodus of
Cubans and Haitians in 1994-95. In 1980 -- Mariel -- there were over 125,000
Cubans; and in 1994, there were 37,000 Cubans and 25,000 Haitians at
Guantanamo.

By stark contrast, in 2001 there were less than 2,000 Haitians who were
intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Q. When did you learn that the INS had changed its policy regarding Haitians
who applied for asylum?

A. It was only after Congressman [John] Conyers came to Miami and visited
the detention centers and met with the Haitians in March, that acting INS
district director John Bulger acknowledged that there was a policy that had
been put in place in December and that INS officials were instructed not to
release any of these Haitians without specific approval from headquarters.

Q. What's wrong with the argument that this needs to be done to avoid a mass
migration from Haiti?

A. It's déjà vu all over again. The government has argued this in the past.
I remember following the 1991 coup in Haiti when we were very concerned that
a large number of Haitian asylum seekers who had been interdicted by the
Coast Guard were about to be repatriated. And we filed a lawsuit in federal
district court here in Miami. I remember our first court hearing before
Judge C. Clyde Atkins, none other than Kenneth Starr, who was then the
solicitor general of the U.S., was sent to argue the case for the
government.

Three times, the judge ruled in favor of the Haitians, and the government
quickly appealed. The last time they appealed, they informed the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals that it was a matter of national security that they
be allowed to repatriate the Haitians because they had evidence that there
was going to be a mass exodus of Haitians; they had evidence there was
20,000 Haitians massed on the shores of Haiti and they were going to head to
[the U.S. Naval Station at] Guatanamo [Bay in Cuba], which was filled to
capacity.

We learned that there was no evidence of a mass exodus. In fact, we talked
to the Coast Guard attache who surveyed the Haitian coasts, and he informed
us there was no evidence of a mass exodus. Under sworn deposition
Undersecretary of State Bernard Aronson admitted that the term massing was
ambiguous and that he was quite unsure of the number of Haitians preparing
to leave.

In an earlier case, the government again informed the court that there was a
massive influx of Haitians coming to the United States. The appeals court
rejected that claim and made note that Haitians represented no more than 2
percent of the illegal immigration flow into the U.S.

Q. Do we grant political asylum to people coming from countries that
supposedly have a democratic form of government, such as Haiti?

A. Yes. Some of these Haitians have been granted political asylum by
immigration judges.

Q. Might not some of the 200 detained Haitians win their asylum claims?

A. Most have no lawyers and they have had to complete their asylum
applications on their own. Because the Haitians are in detention, their
cases are expedited. Had they been released, as was the case before Sept. 3,
and as is the case for virtually all other asylum seekers who have passed
the credible fear interview, they would probably have about a year to find
an attorney and prepare their case.

If you are detained, you're far less likely to get legal representation. And
without that, you are far less likely to be granted political asylum.

Q. In your opinion, what accounts for a different immigration policy for
Haitians?

A. Well, Haitians in the past haven't had a lot of political clout. They are
not from a communist country -- though there's been a great deal of
political violence in Haiti.

And I think it's hard to suggest that the color of the Haitian skin doesn't
have something to do with the extent to which they have been discriminated
against over the years. I think, administration after administration has
determined that we can discriminate against Haitians and who's going to care
and that, in fact, people will probably support this.

Q. Yet we're seeing Miami's business community, civic groups and others
speak out on behalf of these Haitian asylum seekers. Why?

A. Business leaders are saying this detention policy is having an adverse
impact on the economic well-being of our community and its social fabric.
The message that we are sending people who want to do business in this
community is that we treat similarly situated groups differently. That's not
a positive message.

I've been very impressed with the business community's commitment. A number
of them flew to Washington [on Tuesday] and met with the INS commissioner
and State Department officials and some politicians regarding this matter.
They did an excellent job of making their case. Whether or not it's going to
make a difference remains to be seen, because the administration seems so
reluctant to do the right thing for the Haitians.

Q. What are you asking the federal government to do with regard to the
Haitians?

A. In our case, in the early 90s, we weren't saying, bring all Haitians
here, grant all Haitians asylum. We were simply saying, conduct interviews
before you repatriate them.

In this case, we're not saying judges need to grant all these Haitians
political asylum, or that none of them can be repatriated. We're simply
saying that they shouldn't be singled out on the basis of their race or
national origin and kept in detention in order to deter others from coming.
They should have the same opportunity to find lawyers and prepare their
cases as other similarly situated asylum seekers.

Interviewed by Sun-Sentinel Editorial Writer Deborah Ramirez


Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel




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