28891: Hermantin(News)Haitians: U.S. policy biased (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sun, Aug. 13, 2006


IMMIGRATION
Haitians: U.S. policy biased
Haitians and some immigration experts wonder why Haitian migrants are singled 
out by the U.S. government for unequal treatment.
BY PAULINE ARRILLAGA
Associated Press

The conference room at the law offices of Kurzban, Kurzban, Weinger and Tetzeli 
in Miami was crammed tight. Attorneys took turns at the microphone, their faces 
etched with frustration. The question they kept coming back to: Why?

Why, they asked, are Haitian immigrants singled out by the U.S. government for 
unequal treatment?

On this day, earlier in the year, the topic was temporary protected status, a 
designation the federal government can grant to foreigners allowing them to 
remain part time in the United States because of political unrest or 
environmental disasters at home.

Central Americans have repeatedly been granted protected status following 
hurricanes and earthquakes in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. Immigrants 
from Burundi, Liberia, Somalia and Sudan also enjoy such protections.

But Haitians have never obtained relief, despite decades of political turmoil, 
kidnappings and killings and tribulations from tropical storms.

''Why aren't Haitians good enough for the same basic protections?'' demanded 
Steve Forester of the group Haitian Women of Miami.

The question has long haunted Haitians seeking refuge in the United States. But 
underlying it is a more provocative issue, one that some say reflects how 
ill-designed and blatantly discriminatory the U.S. immigration system has 
become:

Are Haitian immigrants treated differently simply because they are black?

Ernso Joseph, an orphaned Haitian boy, was among hundreds of migrants who waded 
ashore after their sailboat grounded off Miami in 2002. Though just 15 when he 
arrived, Joseph spent almost three years battling Department of Homeland 
Security officials who insisted he was over 18 and eligible for deportation. 
Even after a judge granted him asylum in 2003, the government kept Joseph in 
detention while it appealed the decision.

Last summer, after a juvenile court ruled that Joseph was a minor, an 
immigration judge granted him permanent residency.

''I feel like I went through a lot, but it was worth it,'' says Joseph, who 
lives in Miami. Still, he says: ``All the Haitians and all of the nationalities 
should get equal treatment when they come here.''

At the news conference earlier this year, 6-year-old Stephann Jasmin sat curled 
like a kitten in his mother Jeannette's lap. Jeannette Jasmin lives under a 
deportation order, having escaped Haiti seven years ago after being kidnapped 
and beaten by political foes. Denied asylum in the United States, she and her 
American-born son face separation now.

Renes Ledix was there, too. His daughter, 28-year-old Renette, remains in 
detention after fleeing storm-ravaged Gonaives, Haiti, to join her family in 
Florida last year. Her father, a U.S. resident, sought to bring Renette here 
under provisions of a 1998 law allowing Haitians with legal status in the 
United States to apply for admission of their minor children.

However, Renette ''aged out'' -- turned 21 -- while the application was being 
processed, making her ineligible for admission. Now asylum has been refused, 
and officials won't release Renette during her appeals process.

What accounts for the treatment of these Haitians?

Some, like former Attorney General John Ashcroft, have said Haitian 
restrictions are a matter of national security -- that migrants from countries 
such as Pakistan have used Haiti as a staging point for entry into the United 
States.

Haiti is not on the list of nations the U.S. Border Patrol considers of 
''special interest'' because of alleged sponsorship or support of terrorism.

But while Haitians are uniformly detained or turned back, 148 immigrants from 
Pakistan, Iran and other listed countries were arrested in 2004-05 -- and then 
released on their own recognizance, according U.S. Citizenship and Immigration 
Services.

Consciously or unconsciously, says Alex Stepick, director of the Immigration 
and Ethnicity Institute at Florida International University, the American 
policies on Haitians are driven by racism.

But such ''specific, restrictive and repressive'' policies, he says, also 
derive from negative stereotypes of Haitians as poor, uneducated and diseased 
because they hail from the Western Hemisphere's most impoverished nation.

''We have this perception of Haitians being basically pathetic. It's a 
misperception, and it simplifies the reality of Haiti extraordinarily,'' says 
Stepick, whose book, Pride Against Prejudice, examines the backlash against 
Haitians who emigrate to America. ``Nevertheless, it's a perception that does 
lie behind many of the actions of the U.S. government and general public 
opinion.''

Immigration officials maintain race has nothing to do with their rules.

Jan Ting, an assistant commissioner for refugees, asylum and parole at the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service during the first Bush administration, 
acknowledges policies have singled out Haitians for ''undeniably harsher 
treatment.'' However, he holds that such measures are warranted to deter 
dangerous surges by sea.

''The government has a genuine fear of triggering a mass migration. Because 
Haiti is so close to the United States and because there are so many people in 
Haiti who would like to come to the United States, there is a fear . . . that 
if we treat people too nicely or too gently and give them release from 
detention too quickly that will simply encourage lots of people in Haiti to 
make the effort,'' Ting says.

Some Haitian rights advocates argue that the government's 
deterrance-for-safety's-sake argument carries little weight in light of its 
open-door policy toward Cubans, allowing most Cubans who reach U.S. shores to 
apply for permanent residency one year later.

''It doesn't make any sense,'' says Marleine Bastien, who heads Haitian Women 
of Miami. 'Does that mean that the Department of Homeland Security is more 
concerned about Haitians' lives than Cubans' lives? Is it a crime to want to 
flee for freedom, for safety?'' she adds. ``Why is it a crime for Haitians?''