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Candidate Bill Clinton: Attacked Bush's policy of sending illegal Haitians back to Haiti

President Bill Clinton: Decided to maintain Bush's policy on Haiti.

President Clinton had adopted the policy of his predecessor, George Bush, on sending Haitian refugees back to their homeland. Congressional Democrats, led by the Congressional Black Caucus, wanted an American invasion of Haiti and a much more open policy on accepting refugees. In April and May 1994, the executive director of the TransAfrica Forum, Randall Robinson, staged a hunger strike in an effort to force Clinton to reverse his Haitian refugee policy. Clinton did so early in May, and masses of Haitians started leaving their island in homemade boats to join the more than 50,000 who had already left since the military coup of 1991.

So great was the potential flood of refugees that the president revised his decision. He ordered that Haitians picked up at sea by the Coast Guard be taken to various sites for processing and to determine whether they merited the status of political asylum. Florida had also exerted pressure on the Administration to keep the number of refugees down because the state had to pay for the support of incoming aliens.

Tensions between the United States and Haiti remained high through June and July. On June 12, the Haitian military leaders declared a state of emergency, suggesting an imminent invasion by American armed forces. On June 24, direct flights from Haiti to the United States ceased by the order of the Clinton Administration. The American envoy in Haiti recommended that all citizens of the United States living on the island leave. Of the 8,000 Americans in Haiti, only 2,700 took his advice. By the 28th of the month, the flood of refugees from the island had reached unprecedented proportions, with the Coast Guard picking up as many as 1,000 a day.