13469: Chamberlain (news item): Migrants Ashore (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By CORALIE CARLSON

   MIAMI, Oct 29 (AP) -- More than 200 illegal Haitian immigrants jumped
overboard, waded ashore and rushed onto a major highway Tuesday after their
50-foot wooden freighter ran aground off Miami.
   It was not immediately known if there were injuries.
   The Coast Guard spotted the vessel about 2 p.m. and followed it for
about two hours, said Coast Guard spokesman Luis Diaz. The boat ran aground
and the immigrants began coming ashore near Hobie Beach on Virginia Key,
just southeast of Miami's downtown.
   "They were all over the front of the boat, the top of the boat, the back
of the boat. They were all over it," said windsurfer Ovidio DeLeon, who
witnessed the scene. "Then they started jumping."
   Some of the Haitians jumped from the deck; others were lowered into the
water. They ran into the streets, causing the six-lane Rickenbacker
Causeway to be shut down.
   Coast Guard personnel were seen pulling people from the water and
throwing them life preservers; children were being transferred from the
boat to people in the water.
   Seven helicopters and five Coast Guard boats searched for people who may
still be in the water. A Miami Fire Rescue spokesman dispatcher said
emergency crews were treating several Haitians and giving them water.
   Border Patrol agents were en route to begin interviewing the Haitians
once it is determined they are not injured, said spokesman Carlos Roches.
   "If they claim political asylum, we will process them accordingly,"
Roches said.
   Unlike Cubans who reach dry land, Haitian immigrants usually are denied
asylum in the United States and sent back to their homeland.
   The Bush administration changed its detention policy on Haitian refugees
in December to discourage a feared mass exodus from the Caribbean nation.
Immigration attorneys sued the government in March, saying the new policy
of detention was racially biased.
   Human rights advocates said the policy treats Haitians differently than
asylum seekers from other countries, who are generally freed until their
asylum requests are granted or denied.
   "The cards are definitely stacked against the Haitian immigrants," said
Cheryl Little of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. She said they will
all likely be immediately taken to detention centers.
   "If they can convince an asylum officer that they have a credible fear
of persecution upon return to Haiti then ... they should be quickly
released so they can find an attorney and have a fair opportunity to make
their case for asylum," Little said.
   Thousands of Haitians each year risk dangerous voyages aboard rickety,
crowded boats in search of economic opportunities.
   Some end up in the Turks and Caicos Islands, others in the Bahamas, and
some make it to Florida. Many are sent back home.
   Many are driven to risk their lives because of crushing poverty in their
homeland, the hemisphere's poorest country where two-thirds of the
population is unemployed or underemployed and most people survive on less
than $1 a day.
   Haiti's chronically depressed economy has further declined amid
political crisis since disputed parliamentary elections in 2000. President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's party won 80 percent of seats, but the opposition
alleges rigging. Millions of dollars in foreign aid money has been frozen
because of the dispute.
   In December, a ship with 187 Haitian migrants grounded off Elliot Key.
Most of those migrants are still being detained by immigration officials in
South Florida.