Close Call for Haitian in an Immigration Web

By COLIN MOYNIHAN

Published: January 24, 2010
A day after being released from federal custody in Pennsylvania, a Haitian immigrant whose detention in December touched off protests told supporters at a Manhattan church on Sunday that he was so close to being deported this month that friends were waiting for him at the airport in Port-au-Prince.

Jean Montrevil with his 6-year-old son, Jahsiah. He was nearly deported to Haiti.

The immigrant, Jean Montrevil, said that on Jan. 6, he and dozens of Haitian and Dominican detainees were taken to the gymnasium of the detention center in York, Pa., for a journey that, for him, was supposed to end in the Haitian capital.

Their departure was suddenly canceled, he said, when the authorities realized that one of the other Haitians had a fever. Less than a week later, Mr. Montrevil was watching televised images of the destruction wrought by the earthquake in Haiti.

“I could’ve been there,â€