27157: Hermantin(editorial)U.S. POLICY UNJUST TO HAITIANS FLEEING VIOLENCE (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Leonie M. Hermantin (Is that in agreement with the new rules? I'm getting 
confused)

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Corbett notes:  Thanks Lonnie, that's it and will really save me lots of 
time in posting notes.    Bob
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Posted on Mon, Jan. 09, 2006


Miami Herald

> From Haiti: No place to run from violence

OUR OPINION: U.S. POLICY UNJUST TO HAITIANS FLEEING VIOLENCE



For all his travails, Theodore Fritz is a fortunate man. His wife, Bergel 
Mirléne, isn't so lucky. Their story shows how gang violence and lack of 
security drive so many to flee Haiti. Their situation also is an indictment of 
the U.S. interdiction policy that denies Haitian asylum seekers a fair chance 
to make their case.

Awaiting settlement

Mr. Fritz, a radio journalist who easily could have been killed by gang members 
in Port-au-Prince, fled by sea. He was the only Haitian to be granted refugee 
status out of 1,850 Haitians interdicted by the U.S. Coast Guard last year. 
When the gangsters couldn't find him, they beat his wife unconscious. Ms. 
Mirléne lost the baby she was carrying and has a metal plate in one leg because 
of her injuries.

More than a year later, Mr. Fritz is at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, 
Cuba, awaiting resettlement to a third country, hopefully Canada. His wife 
remains in Port-au-Prince, in need of medical attention and hiding from the 
gangsters. In Haiti, there is no foreign embassy where she might seek 
protection.

With all the violence in Haiti, it's inconceivable to think that Mr. Fritz was 
the only person with a bona-fide asylum claim. Yet he was among only nine 
Haitians who showed enough of a ''fear'' of repatriation to warrant screening 
by immigration authorities while aboard cutters. Of those nine, he was the only 
one taken to the naval base, where he persuaded a U.S. asylum officer that his 
claim was legitimate. His case was helped by documentation: Mr. Fritz carried a 
press pass and a note, translated into English by a U.S. reporter, that said he 
feared danger in Haiti.

U.S. policy dictates that Coast Guard officers, most of whom speak no Creole 
and aren't refugee specialists, can refer interdicted Haitians for asylum 
screening only when they have documents suggesting their life is endangered or 
have physical evidence of torture or persecution -- a tough standard for people 
on the run. Even when a Haitian passes the ''shout test'' by aggressively 
expressing fear, he may end up screened via phone. All this, including body 
searches and crowding, chills Haitians from making a claim.

No safe haven

This interdiction policy denies the rights of persecuted Haitians to seek safe 
haven, violates international refugee law and risks sending people to face 
persecution or death.

The State Department should speed Mr. Fritz's resettlement and find a way to 
reunite him with his wife, who has as good a claim to refugee status as he 
does. State also should join the Department of Homeland Security and other U.S. 
agencies to reform this unjustifiable policy.






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