14025: Edouard-News-In quest for asylum, Haitians begin filing process (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Felix Edouard <loveayiti@hotmail.com>


Posted on Fri, Dec. 06, 2002

In quest for asylum, Haitians begin filing process
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES AND ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@herald.com

Emmanuel Louissaint, one of the more than 200 Haitians who scrambled off a
boat at the Rickenbacker Causeway five weeks ago, is pleading with the
United States to let him stay to avoid political persecution at home for
collaborating with people opposed to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Though Louissaint left behind his 4-month-old son and mother in Haiti, he
said he fears being returned because government agents are looking for him.

''The authorities went to my house,'' Louissaint told The Herald on
Thursday. ``They broke down doors. They destroyed my shop.''

The Rickenbacker incident on Oct. 29 sparked the latest round of protests
against U.S. treatment of Haitian migrants. Louissaint and the others from
that boat are now filling out asylum applications they plan to start filing
Monday.

At least 100 asylum applications are expected to be submitted to immigration
judges by Dec. 13, and another 100 or so the following week, lawyers said.

The filing marks a first step toward the detainees' goal of remaining in the
United States permanently. Detained foreign nationals in removal proceedings
can delay or preempt deportation by seeking asylum, and those granted asylum
are released.

Officials from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said they
welcome the asylum applications because they show the U.S. government is
treating detainees fairly.

''We will have an opportunity to see that there is a system in place for
these people who arrived illegally to try their case before an immigration
court,'' said Ana Santiago, an INS spokeswoman in Miami. ``They will have a
full and fair opportunity to exercise due process.''

Louissaint, 22, a mechanic, spoke in a telephone interview, the first with a
detainee from the group at the Krome detention center.

Louissaint says he worked for one of Haiti's opposition parties in
Port-de-Paix, a city on Haiti's northwest peninsula. He was a mechanic and a
driver, as well as political mobilizer -- getting out the vote for
opposition candidates.

Louissaint said he was forced into hiding after Aristide supporters came
looking for him on Sept. 22.

He said he spent about a month in hiding on the island of La Tortue, his
birthplace and a common jumping off point for human smuggling operations off
Haiti's northern coast.

It was in La Tortue, he said, that he learned the boat journey to the United
States was being organized.

When the people on the boat sighted Miami, Louissaint said they cheered.
'When we arrived we shouted, `Long Live America,' '' he recalled.

But Louissaint now feels discouraged by prolonged detention.

''We came here to seek asylum and some of the guards are treating us like we
are terrorists,'' he said. ``They even tell us we are terrorists. We are
part of America even though we are not Americans. We feel very frustrated.''

Louissaint said that while all Haitian detainees are scrambling to complete
applications, only a few are doing so with the help of an attorney.
Louissaint's attorney is on loan to the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center
from Holland & Knight.

''Most of us don't have an attorney and we are being told by the judge if we
don't return the asylum applications properly filled out, we will be
deported,'' Louissaint said.

Candace Jean, an immigration attorney with Catholic Charities Legal
Services, said the task of filling out asylum applications has been
''overwhelming.'' Jean said all the applications cite fears of political
persecution.

Typically, an asylum petition takes months, sometimes even years, to be
decided. But attorneys who are helping some of the Haitian detainees believe
proceedings for the Oct. 29 group have been accelerated -- perhaps to
expedite deportation.






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