About 60 U.S. immigration officers are on a Navy hospital ship off Jamaica today, ready to begin interviewing Haitian refugees under President Clinton's new policy of allowing refugees a chance to make a case for asylum in the USA.
Since January, the Coast Guard has intercepted and turned back a total of 2,294 Haitians on the high seas, without benefit of hearings.
Advocates for Haitian refugees say that previous policy was racist, since Cuban refugees, for example, are almost always given asylum in the USA by U.S. officials.
Interviews will begin on the USNS Comfort, anchored in Kingston's harbor, as soon as the first boatload of refugees is intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard patrolling off Haiti. The 1,000-bed ship can accommodate up to 2,000 people, including refugees, immigration officials and medical personnel.
"The ship will become operational when the first migrants appear," says Lisa Jacobs of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Meanwhile, Haitian advocates in the USA call the operation a sham designed to provide political cover for Clinton, while ensuring that few if any Haitians receive asylum.
Administration officials say only 5% of the refugees will qualify for asylum, based on the rate of successful applications filed at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. The rest will be returned to Haiti.
"This is not a program for rescue and protection of Haitians, it's a program to deter and return fleeing Haitians and mute the political criticism in the U.S.," says Lucas Guttentag, head of the immigrant rights project of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Because the processing will take place off U.S. territory, U.S. officials do not have to follow U.S. law. Refugees won't be entitled to have volunteer lawyers advise them.
Clinton said five weeks ago that refugees will get formal hearings, but Jacobs says they won't. "It's an interview, not a hearing," she says.
Under the procedure set up by the immigration service and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, refugees will be interviewed by a U.S. official for about an hour, including time for translation. A refugee's only appeal will be to an immigration service "quality control" supervisor who can decide whether more interviewing is appropriate.
Refugees have to demonstrate a "well-founded fear of persecution," based on race, religion, origin, membership in a social group or political views. Much depends on how well the refugee tells his or her story and the experience of the interviewer in eliciting information and detecting fraud.
Those accepted will be taken to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they will go through a more formal asylum hearing.
Advocates argue that the refugees should have to meet only the lower legal standard of "credible fear" of persecution, which is the standard used for other groups of refugees.
"They're upping the ante without providing Haitians with any meaningful way of making their case," says Cheryl Little of the Florida Rural Legal Services, which represents many Haitian refugees.
Haiti's military government recently announced it will begin enforcing a law against Haitians fleeing the island without proper exit papers. Advocates warn this will mean greater danger for refugees who are sent back.
"No one should be forced to return to Haiti under these circumstances," Guttentag says.
Back in Haiti, the cutoff of air traffic, among sanctions imposed against the military regime, may strand up to 1,000 Haitians who have already applied for asylum. U.S. officials hope to fly out 250 of them before the June 24 cutoff date.
