15936: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-Haitian children not forgotten (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Jun. 17, 2003

Haitian children not forgotten
Jim DeFede

Sara Berlin didn't quite understand the picture on display. It showed a
young boy, about her age, holding a sign declaring: ``Haitian Children Are
Kids Too!''

Then her father explained to her how children from Haiti are treated when
they illegally arrive in the United States. He told her they can sometimes
be locked up in a hotel room for months on end, without ever being allowed
to go outside.

Eleven-year-old Sara was horrified.

She imagined the little boy in the picture being locked up. The picture was
on display during a People for the American Way fundraiser last May. As part
of the evening's festivities, the group honored Al Crespo, the man who shot
that picture, which is also included in his recently published book, Protest
in the Land of the Plenty.

That night, Sara bought a copy of the tome and immediately read the chapters
on Haiti.

''It really upset me,'' she recalls as we talk on Monday. ``Being a kid and
you don't get to go outside. You don't get to play in the sunlight. It's not
right. Children shouldn't be treated like that in a free country.''

Two weeks later, she read a column I wrote about a 10-year-old Haitian boy
named Leonard Mauge, who had just been released after being detained for
three months. The story noted how U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek was introducing a
bill -- the Immigrant Child Protection Act -- requiring that children such
as Mauge be released to family members in the community within 72 hours of
their arrival in the United States.

''The story said the bill faced an uncertain future in the House Judiciary
Committee,'' Sara says. ``I told my best friend, Samantha Mackson, about it.
She's also 11 and she felt the same way that I did.''

Together they started a letter writing campaign. They talked to their
classmates in the fifth grade at Sinai Jacobson Academy in North Miami Beach
and then made presentations to the students in the third and fourth grades,
as well. All together, about 50 students wrote letters.

Two kids in her class didn't feel comfortable writing letters, she recalls.
''That's OK,'' she says, adding they didn't want to force anyone.

She regrets not having enough time to get some of the older kids involved.
By the time they were ready to go to the classes for grades 6, 7 and 8, the
school year was over.

On Monday, Sara's dad, Louis Berlin, made copies of the letters for each of
the 37 members of the House Judiciary Committee and sent them off to
Washington.

''I have to give a big thank you to my dad, because he helped a lot,'' Sara
said.

Most kids Sara's age wouldn't care about such matters.

''I know,'' Sara sighed.

Then why does she?

''I think it comes from like a gene in my family,'' she says, noting that
her parents are both politically active with groups such as People for the
American Way and AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Have you ever met anyone from Haiti?

Sara thinks about this for a few moments, and then finally says, ``I don't
think so.''

But it doesn't really matter, she adds. Kids are kids, and they should all
be treated humanely, she says.

Hard to argue with that. And yet Congress seems content with the way things
are.

Almost a month after Meek introduced his measure to protect the rights of
immigrant children, the bill remains untouched in the Judiciary committee.
It has not been assigned to a sub-committee -- which would be a step forward
-- and no hearings on the merits of the bill have been scheduled.

In other words, the bill is going nowhere.

Of course, the letters from Sara and her classmates have yet to hit the
Capitol. And Sara hopes the members of Congress don't try to ignore her or
take her for granted.

''If they don't respond to my letters,'' Sara explains, ``I hope to go to
Washington and talk to them face to face about it.''

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