15889: (Hermantin) Sun Sentinel-Haitian teen enjoys freedom after 7 months of detention (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitian teen enjoys freedom after 7 months of detention

By Tanya Weinberg
Staff Writer
Posted June 13 2003

On his first full day of freedom in more than seven months, the teenage
Haitian refugee showed his legal team something they had never seen on him
before. A smile.

Ernesto Joseph's understated joy set off a ripple of broad grins and
laughter at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, the organization that
pressed a national campaign for his release.

Although an immigration judge granted him asylum four months ago, the
government appealed. The tactic kept an increasingly depressed Joseph at the
Krome Detention Center until Wednesday, when officials released him into his
uncle's custody on humanitarian parole.

"It's a good feeling even though nobody knows if he's going to stay or not,"
said Adelphin Pierre, Joseph's uncle. "When I saw him at Krome, he didn't
smile at all. This is a big day for me."

For the 18-year-old Joseph, too. It started at Pierre's north Miami-Dade
County home, where the two were pleased to find that the lanky teen's feet
fit perfectly into a borrowed pair of his uncle's shoes. They drove to
Church World Service in Miami to fill out papers for a work permit before
heading to the advocacy center to thank the legal staffers who filed three
requests for Joseph's release with immigration officials and enlisted the
support of Amnesty International and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee
Service.

Ernesto's attorneys say a decision on the government's appeal could take six
months.

"We're not out of the woods yet," said Cheryl Little, the advocacy center's
executive director. "We're hoping the Board of Immigration Appeals will do
the right thing."

Little estimated her center had spent thousands of hours fighting for
Joseph, one of the more than 200 Haitian refugees to sail into Biscayne Bay
on Oct. 29. Since then the government announced that all asylum seekers who
arrive by boat would be detained as a matter of national security. A mass
exodus of Haitians could divert important resources and endanger lives,
officials say.

Most non-Haitian asylum seekers are released into the community while their
cases are pending.

Advocates say the policy that extinguished Joseph's smile has been extremely
hard on others as well. A woman held at the Broward Work Release Center had
a mental breakdown and was sent to the hospital. Not long before that, a
Haitian at Krome attempted suicide, said Little.

"Unfortunately [Joseph's] case exemplifies the devastating effect that
detention is having on the mental well-being of the Haitians," she said.
"This is an extremely cruel policy."

Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection said privacy issues precluded comment on individual cases, but
"the care and well-being of everyone in our custody is of utmost importance
to us."

Once back at his uncle's home, Joseph traded a tie-dyed T-shirt featuring a
soaring eagle for a fresh white one.

"I feel nice. I don't have to wear that uniform now," Joseph said, referring
to the blue scrubs he wore day in and out for months.

Nestled in an overstuffed velour couch, Joseph savored leftovers from the
previous night's feast of rice, beans, stewed conch, and fried plantains.
His uncle said he looked forward to getting to know his orphaned nephew, who
he met briefly on a trip to Haiti in 1997.

"He's very quiet. I always tell him, too quiet," Pierre said. "If he stays
I'm going to be on him, because I know education is empowerment. I want him
to go to school and do his best."

Tanya Weinberg can be reached at tweinberg@ sun-sentinel.com or
305-810-5029.

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