13468: Chamberlain (news item): Haitians jump ship off Miami, swarm bridge (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Jane Sutton

     MIAMI, Oct 29 (Reuters) - About 200 Haitian migrants jumped off a
freighter that ran aground in shallow waters near Miami on Tuesday and
swarmed onto a busy bridge, some trying to persuade passing motorists to
help them elude border patrols.
     The 50-foot (15-metre) wooden freighter was dangerously crowded when
it ran aground off Key Biscayne, Coast Guard spokeswoman Anastasia Burns
said.
     As a Coast Guard vessel approached to investigate, the passengers
began leaping from the bow of the freighter into the water one after
another and swimming a few yards to reach the Rickenbacker Causeway.
     Coast Guard crews pulled several out of the water. A few were taken to
hospitals for examination but there were no reports of drownings or serious
injuries, Burns said.
     "It was a hectic situation," she said.
     The soggy passengers swarmed through traffic on the busy six-lane
causeway, which connects Miami and the upscale island community of Key
Biscayne. Several surrounded slow-moving cars or jumped into the back of
pick-up trucks, trying to persuade motorists to help them escape.
     The bridge was closed and police and Border Patrol agents were sent to
round up the Haitians, who were believed to be trying to migrate illegally.
They were being taken by bus to an immigration detention center to await
deportation hearings.
     Haitians illegally entering the United States are most often deemed
economic migrants and returned to their impoverished Caribbean homeland.
     Those intercepted at sea are interviewed aboard Coast Guard cutters by
immigration agents to determine if they have grounds to seek political
asylum, but usually are also returned to their homeland. The U.S. Coast
Guard intercepted 1,400 Haitian migrants at sea last year, rescuing many
from dangerously flimsy boats.
     Their treatment contrasts sharply to that of Cuban migrants arriving
by sea in south Florida. Cubans intercepted at sea are usually repatriated
but those who reach shore are treated as refugees from communism and
allowed to stay, a policy dubbed "wet-foot, dry-foot."
     U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, a Florida Democrat, told Miami television
station WSVN by telephone that the policy reflects racial discrimination
against Haitians, most of whom are black.
     "The Haitians are fleeing from persecution," Meek said. "With the
Cubans it's a wet-foot, dry-foot policy. ... The Haitians are turned around
and sent back to Haiti. It's not fair."
     In August, Bahamas authorities picked up some 146 illegal Haitian
migrants from an overcrowded vessel, the latest in a series of large
Haitian groups to make the crossing.
     In March, the U.S. Coast Guard crews intercepted 244 undocumented
Haitian migrants bound for the United States on two dangerously overcrowded
boats and returned them to their homeland.
     Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican
Republic, has a population of about 8 million and is the poorest country in
the Americas.
     Haitians have a life expectancy of just 57 years and a per capita
annual income of about $250, according to the World Bank. Four-fifths of
the rural population lives in poverty, and the capital, Port-au-Prince, is
a teeming city where many people live in dense slums, their homes made from
scrap metal and fabric sheeting.
     Political tension over the past two years, with a stand-off between
the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the main opposition
political coalition over the results of parliamentary elections in May
2000, has stalled as much as $500 million worth of international aid to the
country.