21664: Esser: Haitian Detainees on Hungerstrike (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 7, No. 18 - May 1, 2004

[Excerpt]

*1. HAITIAN DETAINEES ON HUNGER STRIKE

On Apr. 26, about 100 Haitians held at the Krome immigration
detention center in Miami-Dade, Florida, began a hunger strike to
protest their prolonged imprisonment. Brandishing handwritten
signs calling for "Freedom or death," dozens of the detainees
also held a brief sit-in at Krome that day. US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez
acknowledged that about 62 detainees protested on the morning of
Apr. 26, and 25 more did so in the afternoon.

"Some of us have been here 16, 17, 18, up to 19 months," protest
organizer Faubert Etienne said in a phone interview from Krome.
Etienne lived legally in the US for 33 years; he was ordered
deported after violating probation on a domestic violence
conviction nine months ago. Etienne said he saw guards call a
protest organizer out of his pod, then push, handcuff and shove
him to the ground.

Most of the detainees are asylum seekers who were arrested
entering the US. Since December 2001, the immigration service has
denied parole to Haitian asylum seekers; since November 2002, it
has refused to release them even after judges order them freed on
bond. In April 2003, Attorney General John Ashcroft formalized
the policy, ordering that Haitians arriving by boat be denied
release on bond [see INB 11/2/02, 11/8/02, 3/22/03, 4/25/03].
[South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale) 4/28/04]


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