15397: Hermantin-Miami Herald-U.S. won't release detained Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami Herald

Posted on Thu, Apr. 24, 2003

U.S. won't release detained Haitians
Ashcroft decision stuns advocates
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com

Scores of Haitian asylum-seekers still jailed six months after landing near
the Rickenbacker Causeway will remain locked up under a precedent-setting
decision issued Wednesday by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Citing national security and concerns about a possible mass migration from
Haiti, Ashcroft agreed with Miami immigration officials that the Haitians
should not be released on bond while they file their claims to remain in the
United States.

Ashcroft's decision, which overrules a recent ruling by an immigration
appeals board, affirms his authority as the person with the final legal say
in such matters -- and reminds immigration advocates that the attorney
general has ``extremely broad discretion in determining whether or not to
release an alien on bond.''

Stunned immigration advocates said they find the latest ruling a hard pill
to swallow. They have been dealt a series of disappointing blows since the
boatload carrying 216 undocumented Haitian and Dominican migrants sailed
into Biscayne Bay on Oct. 29. The migrants' dramatic scramble to shore was
captured on live television as many jumped from the overloaded boat and ran
into oncoming traffic across the causeway.

Ashcroft said in his 19-page ruling that the detainees' release would
undercut immigration policy and national security.

Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, he said, there is increased need to
prevent undocumented aliens from entering the country without proper
immigration screening.

''Surges in such illegal migration by sea injure national security by
diverting valuable Coast Guard and [the Department of Defense] resources
from counter-terrorism and homeland security responsibilities,'' he wrote.
'Such national security considerations clearly constitute a `reasonable
foundation' for the exercise of my discretion to deny release on bond.''

Ashcroft noted a State Department declaration that it has ''noticed an
increase in third country nations (Pakistanis, Palestinians, etc.) using
Haiti as a staging point for attempted migration to the United States.'' He
did not say whether any of the boat's passengers fit that profile.

The attorney general was asked to consider the issue last month by a top
U.S. Department of Homeland Security official. That department was seeking
to block the possible release of the detainees after the Board of
Immigration Appeals upheld an immigration judge's Nov. 6 decision to release
18-year-old David Joseph, one of the detainees from the Oct. 29 boatload, on
$2,500 bond.

Joseph remained in detention pending the government's appeal. His asylum
claim was subsequently denied, a decision his attorneys have appealed.

His release on bond while his claim was pending would have paved the way for
dozens of detainees who currently remain locked up at three South Florida
detention centers, including a west Miami-Dade hotel where families and
children are being kept.

So far, more than 50 detainees have won their asylum claims, immigration
lawyers say. ''This decision is such a manipulation of our national security
concerns,'' said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant
Advocacy Center, which represents many of the detainees along with Catholic
Charities Legal Services.

Pointing out that Ashcroft's ruling does not apply to Cubans who arrive
here, Little said it once again shows the U.S. double standard.

''To suggest as the attorney general does, that the Coast Guard's resources
expended in the rescue of Cubans is money well-spent but Coast Guard
resources expended to rescue Haitians is a waste of money is blatantly
discriminatory,'' Little said.

Contrary to Ashcroft's arguments, she said, there is no immediate threat of
a mass migration from Haiti -- nor any evidence that it is harboring
terrorists -- despite the Caribbean nation's ongoing political turmoil.

''That rationale is undermined by the fact that they don't seek to detain
Cuban nationals who arrive by sea. Haiti is not in the state department's
terrorist list of countries suspected of harboring terrorists, and Cuba
is,'' she said.



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