23402: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Grant TPS to Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, Oct. 13, 2004




IMMIGRATION


Grant TPS to Haitians

BY IRA J. KURZBAN


The Immigration Act of 1990 grants persons already in the United States
temporary protected status (TPS) for 18 months if they come from countries
suffering political or environmental upheavals -- civil wars, political
instability or destructive earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes.

In 1997, for example, TPS was granted to citizens of Montserrat because of
the eruption of the island's volcano. In 1999, it was granted to Hondurans
because of Hurricane Mitch. Since 1990, it also has been used to protect in
the United States citizens from other countries who cannot return to their
homelands due to political instability as in the case of Burundi, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan and other nations.

The grant of TPS extends a long tradition in the United States of according
temporary refuge to people whose countries are unstable. Prior to
congressional passage of TPS, our government used extended voluntary
departure (EVD) -- an act that had the same effect as TPS. EVD has been
granted to citizens of Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Romania,
Hungary and many other countries, including a grant of status by the first
President Bush to several hundred thousand Chinese students who were in the
United States after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations.

Haiti meets criteria

A decision to grant TPS to Haitians in the United States should be without
contest. Haiti meets both the environmental and political criteria for TPS.
More than 2,500 Haitians have died from one of the worst ecological
disasters on record. This disaster came on the heels of yet another
environmental disaster that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 people
in Haiti less than six months earlier.

Hurricane Jeanne's flood waters not only washed away the lives of thousands
of unsuspecting and unassisted people in the city of Gonaives, but they also
left tens of thousands of people homeless and hundreds of thousands of
people without food or drinkable water. It also eroded vast acres of topsoil
that will make planting rice and other foods necessary for survival
impossible in the year to come. There is no comparable case of environmental
disaster on record where we have ignored a plea for help under TPS or EVD.

In addition, Haiti is in political chaos. More than 80 percent of the
country is in the hands of ex-military personnel who have threatened the
interim government and have refused to lay down their weapons. The U.N.
troops have said that they do not have sufficient strength to confront the
ex-military, and both the ex-military and the interim government have openly
declared that they intend to smuggle arms into the country because of a U.S.
weapons embargo.

The interim government has initiated repressive measures against supporters
of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, including shutting down radio
stations and newspapers and imprisoning members of Aristide's party without
adhering to Haitian law. As tens of thousands of Haitians march peacefully
for Aristide's return, the interim government has misused the country's
justice system to persecute Aristide's supporters.

These tactics have been roundly condemned by the international community,
and our State Department has publicly questioned the continued unlawful
detention of Haiti's constitutionally chosen Prime Minister Yvon Neptune.
Last week, violence broke out in Gonaives when members of the interim
government, including the illegally selected prime minister, Gerard
Latortue, was confronted by thousands of hungry citizens when he appeared at
food-distribution centers.

A travel advisory

Kidnapping, looting, arson and random violence are at an all-time high
following Aristide's departure. Members of the U.S. Embassy are restricted
in their travel, and last week the State Department issued a travel advisory
telling U.S. citizens not to go to Haiti.

If ever citizens of a country were deserving of TPS, it is certainly
Haitians who are in the United States. President Bush should put aside
election-year politics and allow the Haitians to remain.

Ira J. Kurzban, a Miami immigration attorney, was general counsel to the
government of Haiti for 13 years.

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