12523: 30 Haitians at Krome are moved (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami Herald
Posted on Thu, Jul. 11, 2002

30 Haitians at Krome are moved
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com

More than two dozen male Haitian asylum-seekers, who remain on a hunger
strike at the Krome immigrant detention center in West Miami-Dade County,
have been moved to a separate dorm, a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
spokesman confirmed Wednesday.

Rodney Germain said about 30 of the Haitian asylum-seekers at Krome have
been placed in a separate area so that they can be weighed and monitored.

The detainees are among more than 200 Haitian asylum-seekers who are being
detained indefinitely by the INS following a Dec. 3 rescue from a sinking
boat.

Germain, however, refused to call the detainees' refusal to eat a hunger
strike.

''It's not an official hunger strike,'' he said. ``That requires missing
nine consecutive meals, and none of them have done that. There have been
several who have missed a meal here and there.''

Charu al-Sahli of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center said 37 of them were
refusing to eat.

''They said where they were at was cold, and they had no access to vending
machines or a television,'' she said.

Germain said vending machines would ``defeat the whole purpose if you are on
a hunger strike.''

In an unsigned statement dictated to FIAC attorneys earlier in the week, the
asylum-seekers said they began their strike at lunchtime Saturday at Krome
because ``the humiliation we are experiencing is going too far.''




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