25676: Hermantin( News)Haitian teen wins battle to stay (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Jul. 12, 2005




IMMIGRATION


Haitian teen wins battle to stay

An orphaned Haitian teen who waged an arduous fight to remain in the United 
States finally got his wish Monday -- just in time for his 18th birthday.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

jcharles@herald.com


Ernso ''Ernesto'' Joseph, the homeless Haitian teen whose near three-year 
immigration battle reached from Little Haiti to Washington, D.C., received a 
birthday present Monday that money could not buy: the right to stay in the 
United States.

It took just five minutes.

''Happy Birthday, early,'' Miami Immigration Judge Denise Slavin said as she 
approved Joseph's petition to become a legal permanent U.S. resident and adjust 
his legal status. ``It is a just resolution in this case.''

Slavin's decision came just in time: Joseph turns 18 on Saturday, and as an 
adult, he would have faced deportation to Haiti without a green card.

''I am happy,'' said the shy teen, who smiled and silently issued a ''Thank You 
God'' as Slavin spoke.

Monday's decision ended a gut-wrenching legal saga that began soon after Joseph 
arrived in South Florida on Oct. 29, 2002. The then-15-year-old was among more 
than 200 Haitian migrants who arrived near Key Biscayne on a rickety boat after 
fleeing his volatile homeland in hopes of finding a better life.

Joseph, an orphan, found himself facing immigration authorities who refused to 
believe he was a minor. Instead, they insisted Joseph was 19, an adult, and 
detained him at the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade.

Even after an immigration judge granted him asylum on the grounds that as an 
orphan he would face persecution on the streets of Haiti, where homeless 
children are often victimized and recruited by street gangs, federal 
immigration officials refused to release him.

The judge was Slavin.

On Monday, while warning Joseph about the responsibilities his newfound status 
carries, she told him: ``It's particularly a pleasure for me because I remember 
when you appeared before me then. And I thought you should have been allowed to 
stay from then.''

But back then, immigration officials successfully appealed Slavin's decision 
and the Board of Immigration Appeals ordered him deported.

At one point, immigration authorities even sent investigators to Haiti to 
search for Joseph's parents' grave and forced the teen to submit to dental and 
wrist X-rays to determine his age.

They also demanded authentic birth certificates, which showed he was born July 
16, 1987.

Through it all, Joseph would find himself in and out of detention, fearing 
deportation to Haiti at every turn. Even after he was finally released, life 
was not easy.

After living with his uncle, he was sent to live in foster care. He is now with 
his second foster family, and hopes to one day become either a mechanic or a 
police officer.

''I would like to become a policeman, but I have to think about my family in 
Haiti who I have to help,'' he said, referring to two sisters and a younger 
brother. His brother, Ophelio, came with him on the boat but was immediately 
sent back to Haiti after failing to make it to shore.

Joseph's attorneys at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center eventually got a 
Florida juvenile court judge to agree that he was indeed a minor.

However, immigration officials didn't give up their fight until the 
Administrative Appeals Office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 
Washington, D.C., ruled in March that Joseph was eligible to apply for 
permanent legal status as a juvenile.

On Monday, Immigration Attorney Patricia B. Kelly Le Bienvenu, who walked into 
court Joseph's oversized file, marked ''Part II,'' simply asked Joseph's 
attorney, Deborah Lee, which address to send future correspondence.

The teen still has one more appointment, a formality, before he receives his 
actual green card. He already has his legal permit, allowing him to work.

''How many hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars have been spent by the 
government to try and deport Ernso?'' said Cheryl Little, executive director of 
FIAC.

'This case took thousands and thousands of attorneys' hours, not to mention 
help from U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek.''

Meek took a personal interest in Joseph and championed his case from the start.

When former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge refused to 
answer any of his five letters, the Miami congressman cornered Ridge after a 
State of the Union address to plead Joseph's case. Ridge later cleared the way 
for a Florida family court judge -- not immigration officials -- to decide 
whether Joseph was a juvenile.

''It literally took an act of Congress to get us to this place, and a number of 
people on the ground,'' Meek said Monday.

``It should not have taken that much, especially for a child that had a slam 
dunk asylum claim.''

When told that the judge delivering Joseph's birthday present was the very 
judge who first gave him hope on Jan. 29, 2003 -- when she granted his asylum 
claim, only to have it overturned -- Meek said: ``Isn't God good?''