Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/060892/06089930.000

Text File | 1992-09-22 | 6KB | 120 lines

                                                                                REFUGEES, Page 43

Send `Em Back!


Washington says that U.S. doors are still open, but Haitian
refugees are not its kind of huddled masses

By CATHY BOOTH/MIAMI -- With reporting by Bernard Diederich/
Port-au-Prince and Dan Goodgame/Washington


    "It's so hypocritical, so mean. What's happened to
America?" Mareus Aggee asked from the back of his English class
in Miami's Little Haiti. Like the dozen Haitian refugees
alongside him, Aggee, 28, was bewildered. President Bush had
ordered U.S. Coast Guard cutters to turn back all Haitian boat
people at sea, even those fearing retaliation by the island's
renegade eight-month-old military regime. "Bush must know these
people will be persecuted, even shot at, when they return home.
Has he no heart?"

    It's not a question Bush likes to hear. Last week, in
another classroom in a predominantly white and Republican suburb
of Atlanta, a black father stood and asked if America no longer
opened its arms to all refugees fleeing oppression. The
President reddened and replied in a tone of bottled heat. "It's
a very good question," Bush said, "and the answer is this: Yes,
the Statue of Liberty still stands, and we still open our arms,
under our law, to people that are politically oppressed. I will
not . . . open the doors to economic refugees all over the
world."

    A lot of Americans agree with Bush. More immigrants
arrived on these shores in the 1980s than in any other decade
in the country's history. Last year alone, the U.S. absorbed 1.8
million foreigners. A majority of Americans, some 55%, want a
moratorium on new arrivals, according to a Roper survey. "How
many can we absorb in a time of recession and high
unemployment?" argues Representative E. Clay Shaw, a Republican
supporter of Bush's. "We've got to protect our shores, our
people."

    Bush seems haunted by Jimmy Carter's experience with the
1980 Mariel boatlift, during which 124,815 Cubans washed up on
Florida's shores -- and the Democratic President lost the
election. "Mariel definitely left a shadow. Washington has been
nervous all year about the Haitian influx," contends Father
Richard Ryscavage, head of the U.S. Catholic Conference's Office
of Migration and Refugee Services, which provides social and
legal services to some 3,500 Haitian refugees.

    White House campaign officials insist Bush did not let
election-year politics dictate his decision, but Ira Kurzban,
lawyer for Miami's Haitian Refugee Center, believes otherwise.
"The Haiti policy," he says, "plays to the basest part of the
Republican Party, the anti-alien group, the racists, to keep
them from crossing over to Ross Perot."

    In Miami, the long-standing mecca for both Cuban and
Haitian refugees, the locals seem more willing than the average
American to accept the newcomers. Some 57% favor giving
temporary refuge to the Haitians, according to a recent
Mason-Dixon Florida poll. "Much as it strains our resources,"
says Mayor Xavier Suarez, a Cuban immigrant himself, "we should
put both Haitians and Cubans at the top of the list for
admission."

    The inconsistencies on U.S. immigration policy trouble
some Bush officials. One concern is that the latest decision
will endanger the long-standing principle of "first asylum,"
which allows refugees to enter neighboring countries temporarily
until a durable solution is found for their plight. Moreover,
some officials concede that the distinction between political
and economic refugees has lost meaning since the collapse of
communism. "If you ask who faces the greatest danger of being
killed or arrested as a result of political turmoil, a Cuban or
a Haitian, I'd have to pick the Haitian," says a foreign policy
aide. Yet all Cuban refugees are welcomed as political refugees
-- in part because of Cuban-American influence in Washington --
while most Haitians are turned back.

    Only 9,000 of the 36,000 Haitians stopped at sea have been
given the right to seek asylum. Few will ultimately be allowed
to stay. But the tough new White House interdiction policy has
not stopped the flood tide of refugees: since Bush issued his
order, more than 2,000 Haitians have left their country in
rickety boats.

    Bush's proposal that Haitians apply for asylum at the U.S.
consulate in Port-au-Prince seems problematic. When refugees
were dumped back in the country's capital last week, those who
were suspected supporters of the democratically elected
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were fingerprinted like common
criminals. Tension in the streets is at its highest since
soldiers ousted Aristide last September.

    At least 20 people have died in shootings since mid-May,
but human-rights groups believe the number is more like 100
dead. "What's appalling is that the President has defined the
issue of Haiti as one of immigration. He's walked away from the
issue of re-establishing democracy in Haiti," complains Bob
Pastor, who oversaw the Mariel boatlift during the Carter
Administration.

    The U.S. last week seized its first vessel for violating
the trade embargo, a ship with 90 cases of Barbancourt rum
aboard, but there was little evidence that the military regime
is hurting. "It's not working in Iraq, and it's not working in
Haiti," admitted an Administration official. Senator Connie
Mack, a Republican, urged the Administration to concentrate on
ousting the junta, but Bush has so far resisted calls to seek
United Nations' help or to seek a military solution.