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Latest Bush Executive Order Further Erodes Haitians’ Ability to Gain Refugee Protection

New York, NY

The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children is alarmed by a recent decision to allow the U.S. Attorney General to maintain custody of any undocumented alien interdicted or intercepted in the Caribbean region and house them at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. "The order clearly is targeting Haitians and when it is combined with the November 13, 2002, order to allow for expanded use of expedited removal, it will be much more difficult for Haitian asylum seekers to receive fair treatment," says Wendy Young, Director of Government Relations and U.S. Programs for the Women’s Commission.

The executive order gives the Attorney General broad discretion to conduct any screening he deems appropriate in determining whether to return the individuals to their country of origin or transit. The order further states that it shall not be "construed to require any procedure to determine whether a person is a refugee or otherwise in need of protection."

"If Haitian asylum seekers are interdicted at high seas and returned to Haiti without receiving adequate due process, the likelihood of the United States returning a person to face persecution in their home country is high," says Young. "The State Department itself has expressed grave concern about the deteriorating human rights situation in Haiti, and to return asylum seekers to such conditions, without adequate safeguards to ensure that they will not be persecuted upon return, flagrantly disregards our moral and legal obligation to protect refugees."

Data from the Coast Guard reveals that in FY 2001, nearly 1,400 Haitian asylum seekers were interdicted on the high seas. The most current number for 2002 is 1,486.

This latest executive order is the most recent in a series of decisions that hinders Haitians’ access to the U.S. asylum system. Many of the Haitians that were detained after arriving in Miami in the highly televised landing off the Florida shore on October 29, 2002, were determined to be eligible for bond by INS immigration judges. But the INS invoked one of its newly-created post 9/11 authorities to overturn the immigration judge’s bond decision and to continue to detain the asylum seekers while the bond decision is pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals. "The INS decision to invoke this authority in the name of national security is a dangerous precedent and a waste of resources that would be better used to go after terrorists," says Young.

The Women’s Commission is preparing a more detailed report on Haitian asylum seekers to be released soon. It will document that some Haitian women returned by the INS recently have been subjected to persecution including beatings and imprisonment.