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- <text id=91TT2778>
- <title>
- Dec. 16, 1991: American Notes:Refugees
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Dec. 16, 1991 The Smile of Freedom
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 39
- American Notes
- REFUGEES
- Reprieve for The Haitians
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Dancing and waving signs, hundreds of Haitian immigrants took
- to the streets of Miami to celebrate a victory for their
- countrymen last week. Rejecting the government's argument that
- it should be allowed to ship back to Haiti the refugees who have
- tried to reach Florida in sailboats in the past three months,
- U.S. District Judge C. Clyde Atkins extended his ban on
- forcible repatriation of the boat people. Since September, when
- the military ousted Haiti's first democratically elected
- President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the U.S. Coast Guard has
- intercepted 6,442 Haitians. Most are now living in camps at the
- U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
- </p>
- <p> Atkins ruled that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
- Service had used inadequate methods to distinguish Haitians who
- are genuine political refugees from economic migrants who are
- not eligible for asylum. Attorneys for the Haitians found that
- INS officers had insufficient knowledge of the grounds for
- asylum and knew virtually nothing about political conditions in
- Haiti. The government has been given a week to draw up new
- procedures. Meanwhile, the seaborne exodus from Haiti shows no
- signs of slowing down.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-