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Haitians need safe havens

Verbatim

Following are excerpts from ''Refugee Policy Adrift,'' a new Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children report.

This report concludes that there is a fundamental lack of access to meaningful refugee protection for Haitians in the United States and the Dominican Republic, two of the largest receiving countries for Haitian asylum seekers. While some Haitians may leave their homeland to escape economic deprivation, this cannot be used as an excuse to deny protection to those individuals who merit refugee protection.

Haiti's economic failure, furthermore, is in large part spawned by its political problems. Likewise, national-security concerns growing out of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, cannot be used by the United States to rationalize deterrent measures designed to undermine the right of Haitian asylum seekers to pursue protection. Such measures not only violate international and domestic refugee law, they reflect poorly on a country that prides itself on its respect for refugee and human rights.

This report offers numerous recommendations; they include:

• The United States must offer Haitians full access to the U.S. asylum system in accordance with its obligations under international and domestic law. This includes immediately discontinuing its interdiction and summary-return policy.
• The United States must discontinue its prolonged and arbitrary detention of Haitian asylum seekers. It must implement alternatives to detention for asylum seekers, including release in the vast majority of cases.
• The United States must refrain from the implementation of procedures that expedite consideration of Haitian asylum claims. . . .
• In addition to granting asylum to Haitians found eligible, the United States should offer Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure to Haitians already present in the United States...
• The United States must not detain children. It must provide children with care and services that address their best interests and ensure that their eligibility for asylum is fully considered. It must not divide families in detention.
• The Dominican Republic must ensure that its borders are open to Haitian asylum seekers. It must also establish a functional asylum process grounded in international refugee law to adjudicate their claims.
• The Dominican Republic must take steps to ensure that the basic assistance needs of Haitian asylum seekers are met. This includes the provision of work authorization to asylum seekers and full access to education for children. It must prevent abuses against Haitians both at the hands of Dominican authorities and the Dominican community and fully prosecute any abuses that do occur.
• The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees must demonstrate leadership in assisting the Dominican Republic to fulfill its obligations to asylum seekers and in ensuring that refugees are adequately protected in the region in the event of a Haitian refugee crisis.
• The United States and the Dominican Republic, with the support of UNHCR, must restore the right of Haitians to seek refugee protection in their respective territories. Regardless of whether the numbers are small or large, it is critical that the international community allow these potential refugees full and fair access to asylum procedures, an obligation that countries share under international law but have rarely extended to the people of Haiti.