25235: Hermantin(News)Haitian advocates push for justification of detention policy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitian advocates push for justification of detention policy



By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press

May 27, 2005, 4:42 PM EDT

MIAMI -- Haitian advocates told a federal judge Friday the U.S. government
is not being responsive to their efforts to determine whether the Bush
administration had evidence to invoke terrorism fears in justifying the
indefinite detention, without bond, of Haitian migrants.

The Florida Immigration Advocacy Center is suing the government for
documents to back up a decision by former Attorney General John Ashcroft in
April 2003 that implied terrorists from the Middle East and Pakistan might
use Haiti as a ``staging point'' to infiltrate the United States.

The decision to change immigration policy and detain Haitian asylum seekers
on national security grounds came after a crowded wooden boat containing
more than 200 undocumented Haitians and Dominicans came ashore on Key
Biscayne in October 2002, under live television coverage.

Requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act with five U.S.
government agencies have thus far produced no public documents containing
evidence of terrorists ``disguised as Haitian boat people,'' said advocacy
center attorney Carl Goldfarb.

The hearing Friday focused on a classified, one-page National Security
Agency document, which U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold reviewed in private.
The NSA, a Defense Department agency that collects electronic intelligence
worldwide, is asking Gold to keep the document secret under FOIA national
security exemptions.

Advocates for the Haitians are challenging that secrecy. They also contend
that the NSA searched its files for evidence of migrants from any third
country but not for those specifically mentioned by Ashcroft _ and sought in
the FOIA request _ which were Pakistanis and Palestinians.

``The (Ashcroft) opinion makes a link to countries that are associated with
terrorists,'' Goldfarb said. ``It's clear the NSA did not search for what we
specifically requested.''

NSA attorney Carole Fernandez, however, said the agency complied fully with
the advocacy center's request by performing a broad search for evidence of
third-country nationals moving through Haiti.

``We searched for any and all,'' Fernandez said. ``We construed it in the
way that was most reasonable.''

Gold did not issue an immediate ruling, giving both sides more time to file
legal briefs in the case. But he seemed skeptical of the Haitian advocates'
arguments that the NSA had not done enough to meet its FOIA obligation.

``It's not so clear that I can agree with you,'' Gold told Goldfarb. ``You
may want to make it clearer.''

The indefinite detention of Haitian migrants who reach U.S. soil has been a
thorny issue for months for the Bush administration, with allegations of
racial discrimination added to the mix when the policy is compared with the
more lenient treatment of Cubans. Miami political leaders and many members
of Congress have been pushing for change regarding Haitians.

In a June 2004 hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Ashcroft
made no mention of a terrorism link in responding to a question about the
Haitian detention policy. Instead, he told the committee that the U.S.
feared ``the triggering of a mass migration'' if Haitians were not detained
when they arrive.

Otherwise, he said, the U.S. government's message to Haitians would be ``all
you have to do is come, even if they stop you and catch you, you will be
evaluated as just fine and set loose in the country, which is what you would
hope to have happen anyhow.''

___

On the Net:

Florida Immigration Advocacy Center: http://www.fiacfla.org

National Security Agency: http://www.nsa.gov
Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel