29644: Pershing (reply) Re: 29642: kathleen (reply) Re: 29637: (news) Chamberlain: U.S. and Haiti at odds over deported criminals (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: tjpershing@aol.com

I looked into this during my last research in Haiti- The reality (which courts 
in the US are starting to address) is that the original legislation is being 
interpreted to include offenses not originally intended to cause deportation 
(recent Supreme Court agreed, only Thomas was in the minority). When the effect 
of this Clinton era policy is taken as a whole- that is, including the effects 
such as deporting gang members back to El Salvador from LA, - where they have 
regrouped and expanded their operation across the US- (see the recent Crisis 
Group report on Haiti)- primarily as drug operations- the trade off has been 
enormous.Think of it this way- deporting violent criminals, bred on the US 
street, is in essence freeing them into societies where their only skill is 
their criminal talents- They aren't monitored or put on probation (as if such 
practices could be managed with Haiti's current Judiciary) and are particularly 
vulnerable to corrupt police and gang members, even if they want to avoid 
criminal life. The US is currently putting hundreds of millions into Haiti 
(some 794 mil in USAID funding- which of course means lots of work for US 
contractors but still will put hundreds of millions onto the ground in Haiti). 
The success of the current attempt to stabilize Haiti, by almost all accounts, 
rests on resolving the security situation. If, as the PM claims (and I would 
like verifiable proof) it is deportees that are heavily involved in Kidnapping 
and violent crime, will security- and then stability and progressive 
development- ever be possible with hundreds more deportees arriving? Wouldn't a 
forward thinking US government realize that this policy, at a time in Haiti 
when prisoners are regularly escaping from the National Prison and the police 
force is still considered 25% corrupt, is counter productive and should be 
administered differently until Haiti can contend with the consequences? This 
is, in essence, a policy of handing over well trained, usually multilingual and 
reasonably well educated criminals to the drug cartels and transhipment 
operators- furthering the potential for instability and insecurity, which is 
exactly what they want. Then again, that's not the  US's problem, right?

In the end, why should Haitians pay an even higher price for the illegal drug 
habits of millions of middle class Americans and Europeans?