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25831: Hermantin(News)Jailed man set for exile to land he's never seen (fwd)




From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Plam Beach Post

Jailed man set for exile to land he's never seen
By Kathleen Chapman

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, July 25, 2005

Steven Altidor has lived in West Palm Beach since he was 4 or 5 years old. He can't remember any other home.

But he was not born in the United States, so he was always a guest in the eyes of the law.

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At 18, Altidor beat a man and stole his wallet, then compounded his problems by mouthing off to a police officer and getting caught with a marijuana cigarette.

Today, at age 24, he faces deportation to a place he has seen only on a map.

Though Altidor was born in the Bahamas, that country does not accept him as a citizen. The United States will send him instead to Haiti, the country his father fled more than four decades ago.

Altidor does not have any friends or family in Haiti, a place the State Department warns is now too dangerous for Americans. He isn't fluent in Creole.

His parents worry about what will happen to him in a Haitian jail, where inmates don't always have clean water or medical care and go without food if the guards are hungry. They fear that he will be killed by political gangs who mistake his tattoos for the marks of rival groups, or targeted by kidnappers who believe he has money because he looks and sounds American.

Wilner Altidor believes his son should be punished for his crimes, even deported to the Bahamas if it would take him. But Haiti, he fears, could be a death sentence.

Steven's mother, Felicita, hasn't been eating, Wilner Altidor said. She cries all the time.

"She knows they are going to kill him," he said.

Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said she cannot comment on ongoing litigation. A judge will decide Altidor's case after a hearing today.

Immigration attorneys say Altidor's case is not uncommon in South Florida. Many people of Haitian descent come through the Bahamas, which changed its laws in 1973 to help prevent an influx of Haitian immigrants.

Everyone born after that date has to have at least one Bahamian parent to be born a citizen. Both of Altidor's parents are from Haiti, so he does not qualify.

Haiti's Interim prime minister, Gerard Latortue, has complained about the United States sending criminals to an already unstable country. A United Nations peacekeeping force has not been able to stop political gangs that are terrorizing the capital, Port-au-Prince. Violence seems to be escalating in advance of elections scheduled for the fall.

Last month, the United States evacuated most of the staff at its embassy and called home the Peace Corps.

Latortue blames some of the problems on criminals who were not born in Haiti or who left as small children. His government automatically jails every criminal deportee, even those who have finished their sentences.

American leaders have objected to the Haitian practice of jailing deportees who have served their time, saying it violates human-rights agreements. And, before a landmark case in 2002, immigration attorneys said, they were often able to stop the deportation of criminals to Haiti on the grounds that their treatment in Haitian jails would amount to state-sanctioned torture.

But a case before the Board of Immigration Appeals that year set a precedent. Though the United States acknowledges that conditions in Haitian jails are often deplorable, the appeals court ruled that they did not rise to the level of torture.

In order to keep Altidor in the United States, his attorney, Jessica Zagier of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, has to convince a judge that he is more likely than not to be persecuted in Haiti. She argues that Altidor's gold tooth and tattoos will set him apart from Haitian citizens and lead soldiers or rivals to mistake him for a member of a political gang.

Advocacy center attorney Jack Wallace, who has represented many Bahamians deported to Haiti, said some have told horror stories about "being left in a foreign land, having nowhere to turn and nowhere to go."

Some reported that they went as long as two weeks without food, he said.

Judges still seem to be stopping deportations of felons who are sick, mentally ill, or like Altidor, have no relatives to help win their release from jail, Wallace said.

Wilner Altidor said he has no family left Haiti. He left in 1961 when he was 16, and never wanted to go back. His father, who had a job in the government, was murdered there, he said.

"It is a bad place."

Ordained as a minister in the Bahamas, he works at a West Palm Beach discount store.

Wilner Altidor said he was proud to raise his sons as Americans. When people tried to speak to Steven in Creole as a little boy, he answered them in perfect English, he said.

Steven Altidor spoke without a trace of an accent in an immigration hearing July 18. He doesn't really know much about Haiti.

He started getting in trouble when he joined a local gang called the Haitian Mafia. Kids at Palm Beach Lakes High picked on people and stereotyped them, he said, so he wanted protection. The gang wasn't as tough as it pretended, he testified. Mostly, he said, the members just hung out.

When he was about 15, he got a tattoo that says "Thug" on his arm and another on his stomach that says "Haitian Assassin." He told the immigration judge the tattoos were meant to "make me look badder than I really was."

But Altidor did get arrested several times. In 1999, he was charged with simple battery when he slapped a girl he knew. He was convicted of robbery when he and a friend beat a man for his wallet. A few months later, he was walking down the street holding a joint when he bumped into a police officer. And he was charged with unlawful assembly when he refused to leave a club after ordered by police.

His probation officer blamed him for his acts of "stupidity," according to court records, and extended his probation. A judge sentenced him to a drug treatment program, and incarcerated him when he refused to continue.

Up to that point, Altidor's crimes — all misdemeanors except the robbery — would not have reached the threshold for deportation, Zagier said. But when he quit drug treatment, he added to his jail time and brought the total to more than a year.

Noncitizens who spend at least a year in prison are considered "aggravated felons" under the law and are eligible for deportation.

For nine months, Altidor has been waiting in a Bradenton detention center. Zagier said that he has already glimpsed the danger that he could meet in an explosive political situation he doesn't fully understand.

Another detainee in Bradenton asked him about one tattoo that says "1804" — the year Haiti won its independence from France. The man mistook it for the Group 18, a political coalition that demanded the resignation of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

Zagier fears that the same will happen in Haiti. A violent political opponent will see the tattoo, and mistake him for a rival. And Steven Altidor won't be able to explain.