Haitians Protest U.S. Immigration Policy

Mar 29, 2007


(CBS) HALLANDALE BEACH, Fl. Haitian-American protesters are expected back outside the U.S. Border Patrol office in Pembroke Pines Thursday to demonstrate against the disparity in U.S. immigration policy.

Many of them had loved ones aboard a rickety boat that came ashore in Hallandale Beach Wednesday morning. They know that many of their fellow countrymen and loved ones who took the dangerous journey will most likely be deported.

The migrants were brought to the US Border Patrol facility at North Perry airport in Broward. Experts on United States policy toward Haiti explained these people will be detained by immigration officials, and eventually returned to the most impoverished country in the western hemisphere.

"Each time you see a boat coming, where lives are being lost and people are being treated like criminals, it hurts," said Haitian activist Lucie Tondreau.

Unlike Cubans, who are generally allowed to stay once they reach U.S. soil due to the ‘wet-foot, dry-foot’ policy, most Haitians who illegally make it to the U.S. are sent back.

Immigrant advocacy groups continue to fight for more legal rights for Haitians.

"We're going to be fighting tooth and nail to try to ensure that these Haitians are treated fairly and humanely, that they are released after they pass their asylum office interview, and that they have a full and fair opportunity to make their case for asylum," says Cheryl Little, with the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.

Haitian Women of Miami is a nonprofit group that supports better treatment of Haitians. At a press conference it explained that those who arrived Wednesday, from a 22-day journey at sea, with half the food necessary for such a trip, will be transported, like prisoners, to Krome Detention Center in South Miami-Dade, and eventually deported.

Marleine Bastien, who heads Haitian Women of Miami, has long urged the government to allow more Haitians to stay
in the U.S. Bastien wants at least temporary legal status for Haitians – as was given to illegal immigrants from Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador following natural disasters in 1998 and 2001. That temporary status has been repeatedly renewed since, and some lawmakers are now calling for similar protection for Venezuelans.

She labeled current U.S. policy racist: "Keep the Haitians out at all costs."

"The administration says that if it awards Temporary Protected Status to Haitians, it will open the floodgates. Our argument is that denying TPS is a sure way to get people here as the ones who came today," she said.

Activists outside her offices Wednesday afternoon held signs with the words: "This is not a wet foot-dry foot policy. It's a
black foot-white foot policy."

The group said that President Bush's immigration policy continues to deport non-criminal Haitians who have lived in the United States for a dozen years; who have U.S.-born children, own houses, and pay taxes; and who send money to Haiti ten times a year which sustains hundreds of thousands of relatives there.

When the Haitians arrived on Wednesday, they looked gaunt and exhausted. Three people were in critical condition from dehydration.

Nearly a dozen minors, including a 10-year-old boy were among the group. The body of one man washed ashore. Officials said they believed he drowned.

"Our condolences go out to anyone who was on the boat who actually knew the individual," said Zach Mann, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Miami.

At least 11 people were taken to a hospital. Besides the three in critical condition, four others were in serious condition. Two were listed in good condition, Mann said. He did not know the condition of the other two.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said the agency was investigating whether the migrants were part of a human smuggling operation.

"This is why the U.S. government discourages illegal migration, not only because it's illegal, but more importantly it can be
deadly, as we witnessed today," she said.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., urged immigration officials not to send the migrants out of Florida as their cases are reviewed, an increasingly common step due to the state's overcrowded detention centers.

South Florida is one of the only places that has Creole-speaking attorneys with expertise in Haiti who can prepare the migrants to present their cases, Meek wrote in a letter to ICE.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist promised that at least while the migrants remain in Florida, they will be cared for and treated well. "As the grandson of an immigrant, I appreciate people's yearning for freedom and a better opportunity for themselves and their family. We have a federal policy that's a little bit different from that," Crist said.




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