21006: (Hermantin) Sun-Sentinel-Ankle monitors yield mixed results (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Ankle monitors yield mixed results



By Tal Abbady
Staff Writer

April 1, 2004

With a monitor strapped on his leg and a few verbal instructions in Creole,
the accountant from Haiti hoped an unfettered American life would soon be
his.

Antoine Denor Victor arrived by plane in Miami from Port-au-Prince in June
2003 seeking asylum. In September 2003, after two months at Krome Detention
Center, he became one of the first participants in a program that allows
jailed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to be released with an
electronic ankle monitor while they wait for a judge to decide if they can
stay in the country.

One month after his release, federal agents arrested Victor at his cousin's
house and charged him with 15 violations of the Electronic Monitor Program.
Victor says he was never given any written instructions explaining the
program's terms.

His transgressions, which include leaving the house to attend Saturday
church services and early enough one weekday to make a 9 a.m. court date,
returned him to Krome. There, he wades through the murky asylum process
behind bars, confined from the outside world where he met with his lawyer
unimpeded, found a refuge in church and had a family to sustain him.

The Department of Homeland Security sought to ease crowding in jails teeming
with asylum seekers and illegal immigrants when it launched the pilot
program in Miami, Anchorage and Detroit in August 2003. In Miami, 80 people
from Latin America, Haiti and other parts of the world so far have
participated, although 33 have been redetained for violations, officials
said. Sixty other people are in programs in Anchorage and Detroit.

Detainees with no criminal background who seek legal status and have
sponsors can volunteer. Fitted with a wristwatch-style monitor on their
ankles, participants must observe a strict curfew and regular meetings with
a parole officer until an immigration judge rules on their fate. They pursue
their status claims outside of prison, but under the electronic control of
agents to ensure their appearance in court.

Federal officials say the program is a cost-efficient and humane alternative
to a wait behind bars. Now funded in Miami for up to 100 immigrants,
officials hope one day to expand the program to include most asylum seekers
or those detained for having illegal immigration status.

"Our position is that it's best for everyone involved if we keep these
people out of detention," said John Mata, Field Office Director in Miami for
the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "It's a win-win situation for
the alien and the government."

But immigrant advocates warn the program is simply a 24-hour tether to
authorities that fails to help participants attain legal status. They argue
it lacks a connection to community services that would help participants
pursue their claims lawfully. Those following Victor's case also claim the
program violates due process laws by depriving participants of written
instructions in their native language, something officials say they are
remedying.

Victor said the only instructions he received upon leaving Krome were from a
security guard who explained in Creole that he could leave his house daily
from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Homeland Security officials, however, say he and his English-speaking
sponsor signed an English-language form explaining that he was allowed out
of his home from Sundays to Fridays between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. On Saturdays
he was not to go out at all.

Victor said he did not recall signing the form or learning of the Saturday
restriction.

Looking withered and red-eyed behind a thick, glass pane at the detention
center, the 30-year-old was still shocked by his early morning arrest in
October 2003. He spoke in Creole through a translator.

"I was so frustrated," said the university-trained accountant. "I did my
best to respect them and to go by the rules."

Homeland Security officials said Victor committed five curfew violations
that include twice leaving his house on Saturday. Victor says he did so to
go to Sabbath services at a Seventh-Day Adventist church, and on a weekday
before 9 a.m. That early departure was necessary to make a 9 a.m.
immigration court appearance, Victor said, adding that calls to his parole
officer to explain were not returned.

There are 12 other infractions, two pertaining to curfew and the remainder
labeled as "technical," but officials would not elaborate.

Victor said he was never told what all 15 violations were. Neither was his
attorney, Jack Wallace of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, despite
requesting a full account of the charges against his client from Homeland
Secuirty officials.

"As far as I know, Mr. Victor's worst violation is that he went to church or
left his house to go to court," said Wallace, adding that without written
instructions in his language, Victor had only a cursory understanding of the
rules he broke.

According to Mata, Creole language forms were not available when the program
was launched. He said Creole and Spanish-language forms now are available,
and emphasized that both Victor and his sponsor signed a form in English and
Victor was fully informed of the program's terms through a translator.

"We don't think language was a factor in this case," Mata said.

Advocacy groups say participants are set up for failure.

"If Victor doesn't exemplify what the problem with this program is then I
don't know who does," said Christina DeConcinci, director of advocacy for
the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., a national immigrant advocacy
group.

Victor's cousin and advocate, Jacquelin Jean, a real estate agent who has
lived in the United States for 20 years, is at a loss for ways to help.

"He was trying to take care of himself here. We should put convicted rapists
or killers on ankle monitors. But why on someone who's looking for freedom?
Instead of being in jail in Krome, he was in jail in my house," said Jean.

As he sits mired in an asylum bureaucracy, his hope of freedom diminished,
Victor thinks of the poverty of his home country, and the death threats
against him that prompted him to seek refuge in the United States. "I
thought I respected the conditions they gave me," he said of the program. "I
don't know what to expect now."

Tal Abbady can be reached at tabbady@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6624.


Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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