15593: Fw: [haitian-advocacy] FW: Bishop urges reversal of Haitian detention policy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>
From: "Bishop Thomas Wenski" <tomwenski@catholiccharitiesadm.org>
To: <haitian-advocacy@yahoogroups.com>
>
>
> WENSKI-HAITIAN May-12-2003 (600 words) xxxn
>
> Bishop urges reversal of Haitian detention policy
>
> By Catholic News Service
>
> WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The decision by Attorney General John Ashcroft to deny
> release of an 18-year-old Haitian asylum seeker sets a dangerous
precedent,
> according to the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration.
>
> Ashcroft ruled in late April that David Joseph and other asylum seekers
like
> him can be held in jail indefinitely, no matter their individual
> circumstances, because as Haitians they pose a potential security threat.
>
> Miami Auxiliary Bishop Thomas G. Wenski said the national security
argument
> for keeping Joseph in detention uses nationality-based criteria without
> consideration of whether the individual actually presents a security
threat.
>
> An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals had ruled that
> Joseph could be released on bond, but Ashcroft's order said that doing so
> would "tend to encourage further surges of mass migration from Haiti by
sea,
> with attendant strains on national and homeland security resources."
>
> Joseph was among more than 200 Haitians who waded to shore near Key
> Biscayne, Fla., in October and were promptly detained. Ashcroft's order
said
> it's not clear that asylum-seekers are entitled to the due process rights
> that would allow them to seek release on bond.
>
> In a statement dated May 1 and released by the U.S. bishops' conference
May
> 8, Bishop Wenski said the decision is troubling and that Ashcroft's ruling
> should be overturned.
>
> "Asylum seekers should only be detained when necessary for the limited
> purposes of individually determining danger to the community and risk of
> flight, and should not be detained for purposes of deterrence," his
> statement said. "It is widely agreed among international and human rights
> organizations that this is not an appropriate use of detention."
>
> Organizations such as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees have said
> detaining asylum seekers as a deterrent to others is "an inappropriate
goal
> and insufficient reason for detention."
>
> People seeking asylum should never be detained as a warning to others who
> might seek to flee their countries, he said. The only acceptable reason to
> detain such would-be immigrants should be to ensure that people appear for
> their hearings, wrote the bishop.
>
> "Whenever possible, these individuals, many of whom have already endured
> severe hardship and persecution should be released into the community
> pending decisions on their asylum cases," Bishop Wenski said.
>
> Ashcroft asserted that Joseph should be held not because he himself was
> considered a security risk, but because a mass migration from Haiti to
> Florida would divert Coast Guard and Department of Defense resources from
> counterterrorism and homeland security needs. Ashcroft also said Haiti was
> being used as a base by people from other countries to try to enter the
> United States for terrorism purposes, noted Bishop Wenski.
>
> Even if that is the case, the bishop said, "U.S. law provides for
> individualized bond determinations to ascertain whether an individual is a
> flight risk or a danger to the community, as well as whether an individual
> presents a national security risk."
>
> "The government conducts security checks on thousands of noncitizens,"
> Bishop Wenski said. "Surely the same type of screening could be applied to
a
> few hundred Haitians."
>
> He asked Ashcroft to reverse his ruling and called for respect to be shown
> "for the human dignity of Haitians and other asylum seekers arriving at
our
> shores."
>
> Bishop Wenski warned that the new policy could cause "undue suffering to
> thousands of innocent people who come to our land to find protection from
> persecution. Such systematic and discriminatory treatment of those who
seek
> our safe haven undermines our tradition as a defender of human rights and
> further erodes U.S. leadership and moral authority around the world."
>
> END
>
> 05/12/2003 3:46 PM ET
>
> Copyright (c) 2003 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops
>
>
>
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