Thread: Haitians Reach Shore

They will definitely be deported.
http://cbs4.com/local/local_story_087081337.html

Mar 28, 2007 8:11 am US/Eastern

Dramatic Video As Migrants Reach Hallandale Beach
(CBS4) HALLANDALE BEACH Dozens of migrants, believed to be Haitian, have arrived in South Florida after a dangerous journey on the water.

The migrants came ashore at Hallandale Beach early Wednesday morning. Video from Chopper 4 showed the migrants crammed onto a rickety wooden sail boat.

At one point, one of the migrants jumped from the boat and tried to swim to shore but it appeared he wouldn’t make it. A firefighter dove into the water and rescued him.

When the ship got closer to shore, the waves began relentless pounding it and nearly tipped it over. As the boat leaned precariously to one side, the migrants jumped out of the boat and swam a short distance to the beach.

Local lifeguards, police and the Coast Guard responded to the scene and helped some of the migrants make it safely to shore.

At least one person had to be removed from the boat and put on a stretcher which was then carried by firefighters out of the water.

Another person had to be coaxed out of the bottom of the boat. He appeared very weak and also needed help getting off the boat and onto shore.

Migrants? What are they birds? Migration means going between regions as the climate changes. These are illegal immigrants, no matter how you cut the cake.

Are they sending them back home? We can't be expected to take in everyone.

Well of course we can, it's cheap labor.

Migrants? What are they birds? Migration means going between regions as the climate changes. These are illegal immigrants, no matter how you cut the cake.
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LOL they just won't call it what it really is will they?

They will get sent back as they were caught and they aren't Cuban. We are seeing more of it now. Two weeks ago police chased 5 that landed south of where these ones did and nabbed them. They are all being sent back. Here is an update on the story.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/ ... -headlines

Battered sailboat carrying 101 Haitian migrants lands on South Broward beach

By Macollvie Jean-Francois, Marlene Naanes & Lou Toman
sun-sentinel.com
Posted March 28 2007, 1:45 PM EDT


HOLLYWOOD – Officials said more than 100 Haitians migrants aboard a wooden fishing boat landed on the city's southern beach Wednesday morning. At least nine were hospitalized and at least one person died in the crossing.

The dilapidated 30- to 35-foot single-mast sailboat ran aground a short distance north of Hallandale Beach Boulevard and A1A shortly before 7 a.m. The rickety boat and its human cargo quickly drew a crowd of onlookers.

TV cameras showed a number of passengers jumping into the rough surf and swimming a short distance to the nearby shore. Some appeared weak, disoriented and seasick.

All were taken to a nearby Hallandale Beach fire station where officials said they counted 101 people, including at least two teenagers and one 10-year-old.

The body of one man washed ashore nearby. 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.

Each of the surviving migrants was being checked by paramedics and at least nine were in serious enough condition that they were taken to Memorial Regional Hospital for treatment. Officials there said the nine were treated for dehydration symptons and reported that three were in critical condition, four were listed serious and two were in good condition.

Other ailing migrants were believed taken to a hospital in Aventura.

The Coast Guard and local authorities were searching for other possible migrants.

Ludner Ermitus, 26, who said he helped sail the boat from Île de la Tortue , an island off Haiti, said the sailboat was at sea about 20 days. He said all aboard were from northwest Haiti and said the decision to sail was prompted by a bleak future that included no jobs and economic misery.

"I know (the U.S.) is a big power. They help most countries in the world. I come to see what they can do for me ... I would really not like to go back to Haiti," Ermitus said.

Others on the boat said they were supposed to sail to Nassau in the Bahamas, but they got lost.

Still others said there was fighting on the boat during the voyage and no water or food. Some passengers drank seawater to survive and most were seasick.

The people on the boat were lucky to make a landing, a Coast Guard spokeswoman said.

``The boat was unseaworthy and grossly overloaded,'' said Petty Officer Jennifer Johnson.

Hallandale Beach police spokesman Andrew Casper said early risers having coffee at the Beachside Cafe in Hallandale Beach spotted two boats -- one large and another described as a dinghy -- in the breezy waters shortly before 7 a.m. They watched as the big boat grounded and people began swimming or stumbled to shore in the rough surf. Some were suffering from hypothermia. All were taken to the Hallandale Beach fire station, which is close to the landing site.

The police spokesman said some of the migrants said they had been at sea seven days while others said they counted 22 days since leaving Haiti.

The landing drew a crowd to the beach.

One of the onlookers was Hans Ottinot, 38, a city attorney for Sunny Isles Beach who immigrated to America from Haiti with his parents when he was age 5. He'd heard about the landing on the news and came to see for himself.

"I had to see my people," Ottinot said. "I want to make sure they treat my people right."

A spokesman for the Border Patrol said 90 of Wednesday's migrants were to be taken from the firehouse to its facility in Pembroke Pines for processing. The remainder were in the hospital.

Most, if not all, of the migrants will be turned over to federal immigration authorities. Haitians who illegally make it into the U.S. are generally sent back, but most Cubans who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay under U.S. policy.

Last year, Coast Guard agents patrolling the waters of South Carolina, Florida and the Caribbean stopped 6,061 migrants, 769 of them from Haiti.

Nation
Posted on Wed, Mar. 28, 2007email thisprint this
Haitian migrants put Coast Guard security under scrutiny
By Alfonso Chardy

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

MIAMI - How could 102 Haitians crammed on a 40-foot wooden boat sail across hundreds of miles for 22 days without the U.S. Coast Guard having a clue until the desperate migrants' chaotic landing at Hallandale Beach?

That question was paramount on many people's minds Wednesday - particularly because the landing came exactly three weeks after Operation Vigilant Sentry, a mock exercise to prevent an unexpected influx of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti or any other Caribbean hot spot to Florida's porous shores.

Rear Adm. David W. Kunkel, head of the U.S. Coast Guard in Miami, who led the Homeland Security exercise, said then that the U.S. government's goal is to block 95 percent of those trying to enter the country.

But on Wednesday, as TV crews in helicopters captured the emotional scene of dozens of people jumping into the water to reach U.S. shores, the Coast Guard appeared to have failed its first big test.

The Government Accountability Office and some members of Congress who track Coast Guard operations have been warning for months that U.S. border protection has been compromised as other missions have multiplied or taken precedence. A 2006 GAO report found that the Coast Guard's $24 billion deepwater modernization program has endured hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns nationally and shoddy work by contractors.

"The upshot of all this is that we're beginning to see significant flows of both drugs and human beings back in South Florida," said Bruce Bagley, professor and chair of the department of international studies at the University of Miami. Bagley has been monitoring Coast Guard operations for years.

Not so, said Coast Guard officials.

They maintain that the recent removal of eight Key West, Fla.-based cutters for repairs and the deployment of at least two vessels from South Florida to Iraq have not adversely affected the Coast Guard's mission that spans 1.8 million square miles from the South Carolina coast to the Caribbean.

Dana Warr and James Judge, Coast Guard spokesmen, said their agency has enough vessels to meet operational needs - regardless of the Key West cutter problem and the Iraq war.

Warr said the district here constantly deploys on temporary duty cutters and aircraft from other parts of the country to cover needs as they arise.

"Our district is so busy that our assets come from other parts of the country," said Warr. "We have cutters from Boston, Maine, Portsmouth, Virginia and North Carolina deployed in the Caribbean for months at a time."

In December, Coast Guard Commander Thad Allen took eight of 10 Key West-based cutters off duty because of structural problems. The deployment of six Coast Guard vessels - at least two from South Florida - to Iraq also has raised questions about the Coast Guard's ability to deal with a massive exodus and renewed debate on the efficiency of the Coast Guard and the way Haitian refugees are treated.

Coast Guard spokesman Warr said he is prohibited from revealing precisely how many cutters and aircraft are operating along South Florida shores and in the region's three key migrant routes: the Florida Straits and the sea passages between Haiti and Cuba and between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

The Coast Guard has about 40 cutters and 40 aircraft in the district, Warr said, out of a fleet of more than 200 cutters and almost 200 aircraft.

Even if the entire fleet were redeployed to the district that includes South Florida it would not be enough to stop all migrant boats.

"We can't cover all of it all the time," Warr said.

In the recent mass migration simulation, Coast Guard officials said that in a real exodus some migrants would make it ashore.

Whether Wednesday's 102 migrants - including 12 unaccompanied minors whose ages were not made public - sailed from Haiti 708 miles away was not known for sure, though initial evidence indicated they may have come from either Port-de-Paix or La Tortue island in Haiti's northwest coast. One of the migrants died.

This is the third time this month authorities have reported Haitian migrants dying at sea while trying to leave Haiti.

On March 1, the Coast Guard reported that eight dead Haitians and two survivors - badly burned and dehydrated - had been found near the Dominican Republic. They were among 54 Haitians aboard a ship that had burned and sank. The 44 were presumed dead.

A week later, 10 more Haitians were found dead at sea near Exuma in the Bahamas while trying to enter that country illegally. Another 17, who did not drown, were arrested by Bahamian police.


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http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 989417.htm

The family members and Haitian community have been fighting to allow them to be able to stay. It has been all ver the news here. They do have a point when they claim the poverty is just as bad as Cuba's so if one can stay they should both stay or get rid of the wetfoot/dryfoot policy.

Hi There Swatchick.

Std. disclaimer... This is all from memory and it is still early this morning!

I believe the main reason Cubans have a different standard has it's roots in the political angle - they are 'subjects' of a dictatorial regime. Haitians can not rightfully claim that (at the present at least). As far as poverty goes, while Haiti is still most likely the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, there are many poorer countries in other parts of the world. So, then, we get into the comparisons of relative poverty vs. proximity - we tend to 'get' more Haitians because they physically can hop on a boat and sail their way here - people from parts of Africa, Asia, etc. can't do that so easily.

I sympathize for the poor people from Haiti and elsewhere - but the fact remains: we can't accept everyone from everywhere... and accepting large numbers of poor lowers our standard of living in the end.

Phred E: I agree that it was originally political but that situation has changed and people are no longer arrested for many of the violations that was the norm in the past. If it was as bad as it used to be then why are people able to make 5 or 7 attempts to come here. Why aren't they in jail or being mistreated after each attempt? The truth is they aren't. Since Fidel Castro's health has gone down there has been less mistreatment. Currently I can honestly say that it is a situation of family members wanting to be reunited with each other. Since this has become the case I think it is unfair to keep that policy.