a1287: Haitian detainees sue INS, demand release (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Florida Sun-Sentinel

Haitian detainees sue INS, demand release

By Jody A. Benjamin
and Madeline Baró Diaz Staff Writers
Posted March 16 2002

MIAMI · Haitian refugees detained for months by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service sued the agency Friday, saying a discriminatory
policy keeps them locked up while refugees from other countries are
released.

Immigrant advocates filed the lawsuit that asks a federal judge to order the
INS to release the detainees while they apply for asylum, to stop using race
and nationality as a factor in release decisions, and to reconsider release
requests already denied. The suit also asks the judge to certify a class
action.

INS-Miami District is holding more than 240 Haitians who arrived by sea and
by air since December.

They include one man and two boys who already have been granted asylum, in
an apparent reversal of INS policy.

Advocates say the INS hardened its stance toward Haitians after a crowded
refugee boat ran aground in Biscayne National Park on Dec. 3.

As part of the lawsuit, advocates compiled figures showing that the INS has
released 91 percent of refugees from other countries since then, while most
Haitians remain detained.

The suit is the first against the INS for its treatment of Haitian refugees
since 1985.

Singled out

"Once again, our government is singling out Haitians for separate
discriminatory treatment," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the
Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. "INS should be focusing their attention
on terrorists, not Haitian refugees."

On Friday, the INS denied that there had been a change in policy toward
Haitians and that its actions were discriminatory. As always, Haitian asylum
applicants are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, a spokeswoman said.

"We do not make decisions based on nationality or race," said Karen
Kraushaar, INS spokeswoman in Washington D.C. She declined to comment
specifically about the pending lawsuit.

Immigrant advocates are receiving some support on the issue from members of
Congress.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said he met with INS-Miami District Director
John Bulger, who told him that the Haitians were being detained in order to
discourage other Haitians from risking their lives on dangerous, overseas
journeys.

On March 9, Conyers made an impromptu visit to four South Florida centers
where the INS is holding the Haitians. Most of the men are held at the Krome
detention camp, women at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center,
unaccompanied minors at Boystown and parents with children in a South
Miami-Dade Comfort Inn. Some others have been taken to places as far away as
New Jersey, according to their attorneys.

Children isolated

Access to medical care, recreation, education and interpreters varies widely
among the centers, said advocates.

"The most stunning thing was to go to the Comfort Inn and see the little
kids there that can't leave their rooms," Conyers said. "They are getting no
education. They are just stuck there. It really hit me. It was so touching."

Conyers said Friday he was considering holding congressional hearings into
the Haitian detentions in South Florida.

Detainees have complained of mistreatment by guards, lack of Creole-speaking
staff and inadequate medical care.

"Most of the Haitian women detained are very depressed because of all the
pain and suffering we are enduring in this place," detainee Roseline LeGrand
said in an affidavit. "We fled our country because we were afraid of being
persecuted, and now we are treated like criminals."

Releases slow down

Before December, most Haitian refugees who the INS found to have a credible
fear of persecution claim were released pending their asylum hearings,
immigrant advocates say.

But few have been released since then, advocates said.

That includes the lawsuit's lead plaintiff, Ernest Moise, 40, who was
granted asylum by an immigration judge on Feb. 22. The INS has the
discretion to let Moise go, said his attorney, Randy McGrorty, but the
agency has declined to release Moise while it decides whether to appeal.

Moise belonged to a political opposition group affiliated with the Baptist
Church in Gonaives, Haiti, whose public rallies routinely were attacked by
police and government supporters, McGrorty said. Police ransacked Moise's
home.

"Fortunately, he escaped before anything bad happened to him," McGrorty
said. "An immigration judge said he has a well-grounded fear of persecution
and he still wasn't released."

The current treatment is a throwback to Republican-era handling of Haitian
refugees in the early 1980s, according to immigrant advocates. That policy
ultimately failed to stem a tide of Haitians to Florida later in the decade,
said Thomas Wenski, auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami.

"In Haiti right now, the political situation is a mess. Haiti is at the
brink of implosion," Wenski said. "Misery is a big push."

Madeline Baró Diaz can be reached at mbaro@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5007.




Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel





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