14934: Hermantin: Miami Herald Editorial-Free the Children from INS custody, Abysmal Treatment (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sun, Feb. 23, 2003

FREE THE CHILDREN
FROM INS CUSTODY, ABYSMAL TREATMENT

The Immigration and Naturalization Service isn't equipped by training or
policy to be a child-welfare agency. Yet the INS continues to hold dozens of
Haitian children in indefinite detention and treat them abysmally, sometimes
in violation of INS's own policies. The situation provides ample evidence
why the agency should get out of the child-welfare business altogether. It
seems incapable of doing what is in the childrens' best interest.

It wasn't in the best interest of Ovans Paul or Ernesto Joseph, for example,
to turn 18 while still in INS custody. Each was 17 when he arrived at Key
Biscayne on Oct. 29 in a landing broadcast live on national television. Now
the youth are detained indefinitely as adults at Krome.

A SAD BIRTHDAY

Ovans' father, who lives in Orlando, says he provided all documents
requested by the INS. ''I was told that my son would be released to me
before his 18th birthday, which was on Dec. 3,'' Ovide Paul said. ''I was
told I would get a call letting me know when to pick him up.'' But when Mr.
Paul called on his son's birthday, he was told the boy had been transferred
to Krome. ''It's an injustice,'' he said.

For Ernesto, winning asylum in court hasn't brought his freedom. Ernesto,
who turned 18 on Jan. 4, was granted asylum by an immigration judge at the
end of January. He wasn't released then, and won't be anytime soon if the
INS appeals the ruling, as it told Ernesto's lawyer it would.

It is INS policy not to comment on individual cases. But by dragging its
feet, INS ensured that these minors would be placed in indefinite detention
as ''adults.'' This runs contrary to INS's own policy, based on a court
settlement, which strongly recommends the release of unaccompanied minors.

All told, of the 29 Haitian minors that arrived last October, the INS
confirms that 13 of them remain in INS detention today. Of those released,
seven were minors who traveled without relatives and were freed only within
the last two weeks, according their attorneys. That's too long for children
to be locked up, with or without family members.

A more-humane policy would see that all children are released, along with
their caretakers. Asylum-seeking families of other nationalities aren't
treated in this manner.

ANTI-HAITIAN POLICY

Yet anti-Haitian INS policy makes it difficult for Haitian children to win
asylum. The Haitian-targeting detention policy, authored by the Bush
administration, aims to deter other Haitians from coming to our shores.

Detainees and their lawyers say that the INS separates fathers from mothers
and their children. It put families in hotel rooms for months without access
to physical recreation or fresh air. Hotel detainees find it near impossible
see visitors, and access to lawyers is difficult. The INS began taking
school-age children to classes and offering them recreation in December, a
month after being confined in a hotel. But those too young remain confined
to a single room, unable to understand why they can't even play outside.
Decency demands that they be freed.





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