15853: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-Mayors ask for equal treatment of refugees (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2003

NORTH MIAMI
Mayors ask for equal treatment of refugees
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@herald.com

North Miami Mayor Joe Celestin and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz this week helped
pass a resolution at a national mayors conference asking for the equal
treatment of Haitian refugees.

The resolution called on President Bush to provide ''due process for all
immigrants'' and direct the Justice Department to 'eliminate the word
`indefinitely' from the Haitian asylum policy.''

Celestin and Diaz co-sponsored the bill, which passed unanimously at the
71st annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in Denver.

''Today is a big victory for Haitian immigrants in the United States,''
Celestin stated in a press release. ``My hope is that this resolution will
assist the administration in seeing the need for change in the current
Haitian immigration policy.''

The often-controversial Celestin is the first Haitian-American mayor elected
to a large Miami-Dade city.

Celestin said in a phone interview on Tuesday that Denver Mayor Wellington
Webb, lobbied by the White House, tried to have the resolution detoured to
the conference's international relations committee, which meets in six
months.

The resolution would have had to survive that committee to make it to the
mayors' 2004 conference. The resolution will be formally introduced to Bush
next week, Celestin said.

''The women and children in Krome [detention center] can't wait six
months,'' Celestin said. ``It was moving to see all the other mayors respond
and pass it.''

North Miami has a significant Haitian-American population and boasts the
country's first council with a Haitian majority.

U.S. immigration policy calls for Haitian refugees to be held indefinitely
because of national security concerns rather than released on bail.

Policy critics scoffed earlier this year when U.S. Attorney General John
Ashcroft ruled that the State Deparment had ``noticed an increase in
third-country nations [such as Pakistanis and Palestinians] using Haiti as a
staging point for attempted migration to the United States.''

The policy drew headlines in October when a boatload of Haitian refugees
landed on Key Biscayne. The scene -- hundreds of people jumping onto the
Rickenbacker Causeway -- was captured on live television and shown across
the nation.

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