#1327: haiti/cuba/miami : A comment

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: oloffsonram <oloffsonram@globelsud.net>


 are florida and u.s. officials setting legal precedents in miami?...if 
a child loses a parent on route to the united states are they 
automatically admitted, even if they are refugees....a couple of months 
back some cubans were pepper-sprayed as they tried to arrive on the 
beaches of miami...the whole thing was covered "live" on television... 
an instantaneous demonstration followed and the cuban refugees were 
admitted to the u.s..... are these legal precedents?...if these are 
legal precedents, how do they affect haitians and their attempts to 
reach  miami...any lawyers care to comment on this?....is it still the 
old question of political vs. economic refugees, cubans being 
"political" and haitians being "economic"...both countries(cuba and 
haiti), perhaps temporarily, now have similar forms of government, 
executive orders from the top...i remember when the o.a.s observers 
evacuated and left haiti at one point during the three year coup d'etat 
period... they felt their safety was in jeopardy..none of them had been 
killed, they were just being prudent (atensyon pa capon) ...meanwhile 
haitian bodies were everywhere in the streets, but the haitians were 
still "economic" refugees...looking back, was "economic" the correct 
label or was it a case of political conveniance?...what are the legal 
ramifications, ..."where have all the lawyers gone"(in the old days we 
used to say "flowers")....i have a letter from graham greene hanging on 
my wall that finishes with a nice quote... "...a tremendous amount of 
work to do and not many years to do it in."...

richard morse