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The
treatment of 101 Haitian refugees who came ashore March 28 in Hallandale,
Fla., has re-ignited
community anger at racist immigration policies. After spending 22
days at sea in an overcrowded boat, and suffering from 12 days
without food and water, the refugees were seized by U.S.
immigration authorities and, after brief medical attention, quickly
sent to detention centers like criminals.
During
the landing, one refugee, Lifaite Lully
(24), able to swim but too weakened by the journey, drowned.
The
adults were sent to facilities in Palm
Beach County.
Thirteen Haitian minors, arriving without parents, were sent to
altogether different holding locations in Miami,
despite family and friends waiting to receive them in that city.
The 101 Haitians face expedited hearings and deportation, despite
the Bush administration's warnings to U.S.
citizens to not travel to Haiti
given increased violence there.
After
a 2002 change in immigration policy, refugees who arrive by sea,
except Cubans, are subject to an accelerated deportation procedure,
usually after two weeks. As of this writing (April 24), the asylum
interviews have begun.
Since
1981, U.S.
immigration policy has regarded Haitian refugees as
"economic," not "political" refugees, despite
the volatile Human Rights situation in Haiti.
In stark contrast, anti-Communist exiles, such as the mostly white
Cuban exiles, have received almost automatic political asylum upon
entering the U.S.
and are quickly released into the community. Known as the "wet
foot/dry foot" policy, Cubans interdicted on the high seas by
the U.S. Coast Guard are also returned to Cuba,
but may persuade U.S.
officials to grant them entry.
Haitian
advocates are demanding "Temporary Protected Status"
(TPS) for the 101 refugees in order to prepare for their hearings.
TPS is awarded other refugee groups, such as Hondurans,
Nicaraguans, and Salvadorans, for natural disasters and political
violence, but not to Haitians.
Reflecting
the broad opposition to Haitian policy, Archbishop of Miami, John
C. Favalora, said that Haitians face
"apartheid" when arriving by sea compared to Cubans and
called for the release of all the refugees.
An
angry protest on March 31, sponsored by the Haitian political
organization Ve Ye Yo,
was held at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Miami,
and attended by several hundred Haitians and supporters.
A
prominent speaker was the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste,
a former political prisoner in Haiti,
who headed the Haitian Refugee Center of Miami in the 1980s. Jean-Juste said immigration policy was not "wet
foot" and "dry foot" but "black foot" and
"white foot." "Black foot, white foot, we are all
human beings!" he told the rally.
Henry
Petithomme, a Haitian living in Miami,
began a hunger strike to dramatize the refugees’ plight and
received wide attention. After, consuming only water and sport
drinks, he ended his strike on April 18 in relatively good health.
On
April 21, some 1200, mostly Haitians, attended
a memorial for the drowned Lifaite
Lully at Notre Dame Catholic Church in Little Haiti. In an angry,
impassioned eulogy Haitian Reverend Reginald Jean-Mary shouted out,
"They are not criminals, they are human beings. Instead of
giving them dignity, we imprison them and treat them like dogs,
like trash. America,
you forget where you come from."
The
refugees are scheduled to be heard by Judge Rex
J. Ford, who has denied 88.5% of all asylum requests and
97.6% of all Haitian asylum cases, making him one of the country’s
most anti-immigrant judges. Even so, many Haitians are reluctant to
appeal deportation orders anyway out of a fear of being transferred
to far-away, isolated detention facilities during the lengthy
appeals process.
For
Haitians living "legally" in South Florida, there has been an unprecedented number of spouses and
children seized and deported back to Haiti—even
as appeals are pending. Immigration officials have given the deportations
the code name, "Return to Sender."
In
recent years the racist policy was made crueler for Haitians. Since
December 2001, a secret "national security" measure
issued to the Department of Homeland Security, which operates ICE
(formerly INS), directed it to block the release of Haitian
refugees from detention, although no link has ever been made to
Haitians and terrorism.
In
2002, then Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered 200 Haitians who
had arrived in Miami
by boat to remain in detention as a threat to "national
security," even though some were already granted asylum or
bonds by judges. In Senate hearings, Ashcroft singled out Haitians
as a security risk.
Historically,
both Republican and Democratic administrations have denied asylum
rights to Haitians, in violation of U.S.
and international law, including the 1967 UN Protocol on Refugees
signed by the U.S. Deportation to Haiti
frequently resulted in persecution, sometimes death. The
deportations continued through the end of the 29-year Duvalier
family dictatorship in 1986, and during the U.S.-backed
post-Duvalier military juntas.
Under
Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton, the deportations continued during the
brutal CIA-sponsored Haitian military government of 1991-1994.
To
understand Haitian emigration today one must take a hard look at U.S.
policy. Washington has backed
endless despotic regimes in Haiti,
run by tiny elites. That relationship, mixed with racism, has been
reinforced by a U.S.
military occupation in 1915 and U.S.-led UN occupations in 1994 and
in 2004, which continues today.
Today,
most Haitians live on less than $1 a day; the economy is in
shambles. Yet, Washington insists
that Haiti
follow the starvation "free trade" economic policies of
the World Bank. Truly, Haiti
is ripe for revolution.
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