16883: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Asylum Request Haitian teen gets 30-day reprieve (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, Oct. 03, 2003


ASYLUM REQUEST
Haitian teen gets 30-day reprieve
Homeless orphan Ernesto Joseph is not deported, but he is taken into custody
and not allowed to stay with his uncle.
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com

Haitian youth given deportation reprieve

Ernesto Joseph, an orphaned teen from Haiti, woke up Thursday morning in
Miami, packed his green suitcase and headed to a U.S. immigration office --
not knowing whether he would be sleeping in the streets of Port-au-Prince by
night.

Though immigration authorities had ordered him to report Thursday
''completely ready for deportation,'' they instead relented and granted him
a 30-day reprieve while they ''review additional information'' about his
case.

He was taken into custody and moved to a guarded motel room in West
Miami-Dade County where families with children are often detained by
immigration authorities.

Joseph, who arrived in Florida Oct. 29 on an illegal boat from Haiti, is
believed to be 16. He has no home in Haiti and both of his parents are dead.

He was among more than 200 Haitian migrants on the boat who fled their
homeland seeking asylum in the United States, including his 14-year-old
brother, Ophelio. Ernesto Joseph made it to shore. His younger brother did
not, and was sent back to Haiti. His whereabouts are unknown.

For nearly a year, Joseph's attorneys have been fighting to keep him in
Florida because he has an uncle living in Miami. As a homeless teenager in
Haiti, they've argued, there is a good chance he would be killed or jailed
if he is forced to return.

''This is dirty politics, racism,'' said Adelphin Pierre, his uncle. ``I'm
very disappointed. I don't understand why a 16-year-old kid cannot stay here
when he's already here.''

Joseph's predicament prompted inquiries from congressional leaders Thursday,
including U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek. Meek's office spent the morning on the
telephone with John Mata, the field officer director of the U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement's Detention and Removal Division, pressuring for the
reprieve.

`NEED TO BE FAIR'

''We are talking about the life of this young man,'' said Meek, who has
written a letter seeking Joseph's release into the custody of his uncle.
``We need to be fair, and we need to have a level of sensitivity about what
we are doing.''

At first, Joseph's case looked optimistic: In January, an immigration judge
granted him asylum, based on attorneys' arguments that as a homeless orphan,
he would face persecution on the streets of Haiti, where homeless children
are often victimized and refused protection by the Haitian government who
view them as a menace.

But in August, the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned the judge's
ruling, saying his status as an orphan did not make him eligible for asylum.
With that came an order to deport.

Complicating the matter is the U.S. government's contention that Joseph is
not really 16, but 18, and therefore not a minor.

In a meeting Thursday morning, Joseph's attorneys provided authorities with
a copy of his Haitian birth certificate and a notarized letter from the
Haitian government vouching for its authenticity. Immigration officials have
agreed to review it.

''Hopefully, we can get him out,'' said David Shahoulian, an attorney with
Holland and Knight who is working with the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center
on the case.

BACK IN CUSTODY

During the 30-minute meeting, Joseph, now sporting an afro and dressed in
pressed olive green pants and a black shirt, broke down and cried when he
learned he would be placed back into custody. He spent seven months at Krome
before he was finally released to his uncle in June for humanitarian
reasons.

Just a half-hour earlier, he said he was trying to remain optimistic.

''People are dying everyday in Haiti,'' he said.

What his attorneys want now is to get permission from the Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take his case to a state juvenile
court. There, they could get U.S. residency for Joseph under a special
congressional provision for undocumented, abandoned, neglected or abused
children living in the United States.

The process of getting permission, though, usually takes at least 90 days.
Joseph has just 30.

Meek said he is pressing the Department of Homeland Security to give that
consent, or give Joseph more time.

''`We are talking about humanitarian efforts in Iraq because we are a
compassionate country,'' he said. ``But we have a very shaky democracy right
in our hemisphere that is poorer than the Iraqi people.''

In a statement on Joseph's case Thursday, the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Office said, ``The field office director used his discretion in
this case to review additional information provided today by Mr. Joseph's
attorneys.''

HAITI'S REFUSAL

Even if immigration authorities insist on deporting Joseph, there are other
problems. The Haitian government is refusing to issue travel documents,
saying they will not authorize the deportation of a minor without the
parents' permission.

''He doesn't have any parents. If he goes back to Haiti, who will take care
of him? I am here and willing to do whatever it takes,'' said Pierre, who
gave the teen $100 so that he could buy phone cards to call him.

Initially optimistic as he entered immigration headquarters Thursday,
Pierre's hopes were dashed when he was asked to go to his car and bring
Joseph's belongings.

As he pulled out the green suitcase Joseph packed that morning, Pierre said,
``I don't know what they are going to do.''

Asked what he told his nephew before they took him away, Pierre said: ``To
be courageous.''

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