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Contact:  Dina Paul Parks, 212-337-0005, x11

Advocates Express Bitter Disappointment Over Latest INS Directive and Demand Fair Treatment of Haitians

NEW YORK, November  13, 2002   -- The National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC) decry a Bush administration decision, announced late Friday afternoon, to subject all non-Cuban asylum seekers arriving in the United States by sea to mandatory detention and expedited removal proceedings. The new policy, intended to deflect growing criticism of the Administration’s discriminatory handling of Haitian refugees, follows a controversial national security rule, which was put in place after September 11. INS invoked this rule in order to prevent the Haitians who arrived on October 29 from being released on bond. Virtually all the Haitians who have gone before immigration judges have been granted bonds (averaging $2,500). According to Cheryl Little, FIAC’s Executive Director, “The post 9-11 rule was supposed to protect us from terrorists, not helpless Haitian refugees.”

The INS announcement on Friday, November 8, 2002 adds insult to injury. “It is clear,” said Dina Paul Parks, NCHR’s Executive Director, “that the administration believes that cynically applying an unfair and inhumane policy which at first glance may appear to be even handed will somehow blunt the urgency of our calls for equal treatment under the law. It will not.” 

In releasing Friday’s statement, INS said that the Haitians who arrived on October 29 will not be released and that in the future Haitians who make it to shore on their own, as this group did, will be prevented from asking for a bond while their asylum case is pending. They claim this is being done as a matter of national security. “I fear this is a harbinger of things to come. Our government apparently believes it has carte blanche to do whatever it likes in the name of national security,” says Little. “We are diverting precious resources targeting the wrong people.”

The prolonged detention of the Haitians prevents them from obtaining a full and fair hearing on their asylum claims given the expedited nature of their hearings their extremely limited access to counsel and language assistance in pursuing their claims. According to a 2000 Georgetown University study, persons in INS detention are far less likely to obtain counsel than those who are released and those with attorneys are 4-6 times more likely to be granted asylum.

“It is no accident that the administration wants to keep these individuals in jail as they pursue their asylum case,” added Ms. Paul Parks. “But one’s ability to get a fair hearing should not be determined by the manner in which one arrives in the United States. Equal justice is equal justice is equal justice.”

NCHR and FIAC, with their partners across the country, including the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition and Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, to name a few, were cautiously optimistic after President Bush’s statement last Thursday that Haitians, with the exception of Cubans, “...should be treated the same way, (as everyone else) and we’re in the process of making sure that happens.” That hope quickly vanished, however, when the new directive made it clear that the INS’ mean-spirited treatment of Haitians would now only worsen but be meted out to a few others (e.g. Dominicans) as well.

“The President missed a golden opportunity to right a long-standing wrong.” She further emphasized, “The Haitians don’t want to see the Cubans treated any differently than they are, they only want a fair opportunity to make their case for asylum.”

We understand that the administration seeks to divert mass migration toward US shores but believe that alternatives to flight by sea (and indefinite detention), such as in-country or third country processing and on-board asylum screenings, be explored as options for those who are desperately seeking refuge. Surely President Bush would not ask those in land-locked countries, from Kosovo to Rwanda, to remain put should they feel their lives in danger. For refugees, the only option is to flee. For many Haitians, the only option is to flee by sea. The United States, as the world’s oldest and leading democracy, has an obligation to ensure the fair and humane treatment of all asylum seekers, not single out a group based on their national origin and prevent them from receiving adequate due process. This nation is strong enough to do so without compromising its national security or sovereignty.

Dina Paul Parks, Executive Director, NCHR
Cheryl Little, Executive Director, FIAC