“While Haitians have often been singled out for discriminatory treatment under our asylum laws and policies, this is the first time that national security has been used to justify such restrictions,” says Wendy Young, Director of Government Relations for the Women’s Commission. “It is outrageous that the Administration is willing to manipulate our very serious national security challenges to justify restrictive actions taken against nationals of Haiti—a country that has never once been cited as posing a threat to the safety of the American people.”

DHS’s request comes on the heels of a significant recent victory for Haitian asylum seekers. The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest immigration appellate body, upheld last week a grant of bond to an 18-year-old Haitian who had been imprisoned since his arrival as part of a boatload of 230 Haitians who landed in Key Biscayne, Florida, on October 29, 2002. The young man has asked to be released to the custody of his family who are residents of South Florida. The Board found that U.S. law requires an individualized determination of release, thus calling into question the legitimacy of the Administration’s decision to detain virtually all the Haitians who arrived last year. The Board’s decision opened the door to the release of dozens of Haitians who had been granted bonds by the immigration courts, only to have the INS invoke national security concerns and its regulatory authority to stay those bonds until further review by the Board.

Invoking DHS’s new authority over immigration matters, however, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchison again referred the decision to the Attorney General and requested that he stay the Board’s grant of bond. Under Secretary Hutchison also requested that the Attorney General stay any other bond determinations involving Haitians who arrived last fall. Thus, DHS has aggressively sought to restore the blanket detention policy initiated in response to the flow of Haitian refugees who have attempted to flee escalating violence in their homeland.

“As the United States seeks to protect the safety of the American people, it is inexplicable as to why we would be wasting our limited resources on the prolonged detention of Haitians. This is a shocking abuse of power that does little to serve our national interests,” says Cheryl Little, Executive Director of FIAC.

Prolonged detention is part of a series of extraordinary enforcement measures the Bush Administration has launched since December 2001 to prevent Haitians from accessing the U.S. asylum system. These steps include interdiction of Haitian boats on the high seas and within the territorial waters of the United States; summary return of interdicted Haitians with no screening of their asylum claims unless a person explicitly expresses a fear of return; resettlement to third countries as far away as Australia for those few Haitians granted refugee status; and application of expedited removal procedures and fast-tracked asylum determinations that result in most Haitians having to present their asylum cases without benefit of counsel. The Bush Administration has justified these harsh measures as necessary to protect U.S. national security.

Eleanor Acer, Asylum Director, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, noted, “It is time to restore our historical commitment to the protection of refugees. The United States has a long history of sheltering victims of religious, political, ethnic and other forms of persecution. Haitians typically turn to us when conditions in their country make it unsafe for them to remain at home. Offering them a safe haven represents the best of America that should not be sacrificed needlessly simply by invoking the phrase ‘national security.’”

FIAC, the Lawyers Committee, and the Women’s Commission are calling upon the Bush Administration to restore the right of Haitians to seek asylum. They are united in the belief that U.S. national security can be balanced against the U.S. obligation to protect refugees without sacrificing the human rights of asylum seekers and subjecting them to the trauma of imprisonment.