State Urged Detention of Haitians: Middle Easterners Seek Entry to U.S. Via Island

Because it detected an increase in third country nationals, including Pakistanis and Palestinians, attempting to sneak into the United States from Haiti, and because it feared that lax immigration enforcement would lead to a new boatlift from that country, the State Department recently urged the White House to adopt a policy of detaining illegal aliens arriving by boat from Haiti until they could be deported or granted asylum.

When Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft released a legal opinion last week accepting State’s advice, he was castigated by a lead editorial in the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, a big story fell through the cracks: Secretary of State Colin Powell’s department—frequently depicted as the most dovish in the administration—is confirming that Middle Eastern nationals have been trying to penetrate the U.S. from Haiti. In State’s view this was one of the factors justifying detention of persons arriving illegally from that island.

The issue came to a head after October 29, when a boat carrying 216 aliens later determined to be Haitians and Dominicans, ran aground at Key Biscayne, Fla.

Then-State Department Executive Secretary Maura Harty sent a “Sensitive But Unclassified” memo to the National Security Council. “The migrants should be detained unless and until they demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution,” said the memo. “Those who cannot do so should continue to be held, absent a compelling humanitarian reason for release, until they can be expeditiously repatriated.”

State made two arguments: 1) Haitian boatlifts spike when the U.S. waffles on enforcing immigration law against Haitians, and 2) national security could be threatened by Middle Eastern nationals reaching the U.S. through Haiti.

The memo blamed Clinton Administration indecisiveness for the last spike in Haitian boat people. Between 1993 and 1994, said State, Haitian migrants intercepted by the Coast Guard jumped from 2,404 to 25,069. “Anticipation of changes in immigration policy with the new Clinton Administration in 1993 caused tens of thousands of Haitians to take to boats after the new President was sworn in, and policy remained undefined for months,” said State.

“Haitian migration is changing,” said State. “It has become more sophisticated and now takes advantage of routes via the Bahamas and uses professional smugglers. There are hundreds, if not thousands of un-seaworthy vessels ready to take off at a moment’s notice. “We have also noticed,” said State, “an increase in third-country nationals (Pakistanis, Palestinians, etc.) using Haiti as a staging point for attempted migration to the United States. This increases the national security interest in curbing use of this migration route.”

A week after the Haitian boat landed at Key Biscayne, an immigration judge ordered one of the migrants released on bond pending the outcome of his asylum claim. The release was stayed as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) appealed to the Bureau of Immigration Appeals (BIA).

To make its case, INS provided BIA with State’s memo. It also submitted memos from the Defense Department and the Coast Guard. Defense said that mass migrations from Haiti “would create a drain on scarce assets that are being used in or supporting operations elsewhere.”

The Coast Guard said “because maritime migrants are typically undocumented and carry little or no identification, it is often difficult to ascertain the identity and background of interdicted persons, particularly in large groups, which presents potential threats to officer safety, as well as national security.”

On February 12, an immigration judge ruled the Haitian migrant was not entitled to asylum. Nonetheless, on March 13, BIA ruled that pending the migrant’s appeal of this ruling he should be released into the U.S. population. The release was stayed as the Department of Homeland Security, which has absorbed INS, appealed to Ashcroft. Under law, the attorney general is final judge of whether aliens should be released or detained pending immigration proceedings.

Ashcroft accepted the arguments of State, Defense, the Coast Guard and Homeland Security.

Calling his reasoning “far-fetched,” the Washington Post editorialized: “As for the third-country nations, the difference between a Haitian and a Pakistani entering from Haiti could surely be discovered in a perfunctory border check.”

Here is the quintessential liberal vision for securing our border: a “perfunctory border check” of illegals as they arrive surreptitiously by boat and scatter across a beach in Florida.

I asked Charles Barclay, spokesman for the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, if State stood by its assertion that Pakistanis and Palestinians have been among an increasing number of third-country nationals trying to penetrate the U.S. from Haiti. “We stand by the memo,” said Barclay.

Just curious, what country does our State Department work for? As for Haitians, if it's possible, they're even worse than illegal Mexicans. At least many of the Mexicans work while they're here. Haitians by nature seem to be devious and hot-tempered savages. (I made the mistake of renting an apartment to one, one time. The first time I came to collect the rent, she threatened to kill me if I ever showed up again. When I finally got them out, I found dozens of narrow single edge razor blades imbedded everywhere, in the carpets, window sill, toilet seats, etc. She had turned the apartment into a death trap. We later found (from the Seattle Police Dept.) she actually had killed a previous landlord.) No thanks, no Haitians under ANY circumstances, please!

Remember, that nice kid, Lee Malvo (the Beltway killer) was Haitian too. They seem to have no compunctions against killing.

The cops were looking for her and questioned me about her whereabouts after we finally got rid of her. It's a bizarre story, really bizarre. My daughter (in her Air Force uniform) went over to try to collect some rent for me (also unsuccessfully), and she marched right into the place, and in the kitchen saw an emaciated old white man, just skin and bones, lying on a dirty cot. He looked like a skeleton or zombie. She asked who he was, and they told her it was an uncle and they were taking care of him.

What we later found out, was that he was the former landlord. They had kidnapped him and kept him drugged up, all the while collecting and cashing his Boeing retirement checks. His family was looking for him, and contacted the cops. I finally got the Haitians out, just about the same time the cops found the old guy's body, and traced his Boeing retirement checks to our place. (Another great reason for direct deposit!) I never heard if the cops caught up with the Haitian woman. I sure hope they did, she was one evil woman. The cops said she was deadly dangerous. She had a rap sheet a mile long.

The way I finally got her out was interesting. She had several big mean Dobermans tied up guarding each door, and my daughter and I went over when she wasn't home, and took canned dog food which we had laced with massive doses of sleeping pills. When the dogs were out cold, we bound and muzzled them (duct tape), went in the house (and intimidated all the very young kids she had left home alone). We looked for the old man my daughter had seen, but he was gone. (They had probably killed him by that time, but at that point, we still didn't know who he was or that the former landlord was missing.)

I had installed "landlord locks" on the place previously, and I took the cores out of the locks with my master key, so there was no way to lock the doors. (Landlord locks allow you to change locks on a place from the outside, so tenants can't figure out why their keys don't work. The master key pulls out the whole core of the lock, and you can either leave the core out, or insert a new one which uses a different key.) She came home to find her guard dogs sawing logs and immobilized, her kids terrified, and her house wide open. The next day, she was gone. That's when we found she had booby trapped the place with razor blades. (Had to use a metal detector to find them all. They were even buried in kitchen cabinets, so that cleaning out the cabinets, you'd slice your hand open.

She was my all-time worst tennant. Still makes me cringe when I hear of Haitians coming ashore into our country. (shudder)

I've heard similar stories from hispanics who rented to people from Mexico ---one co-worker's mom rented to what she thought was one woman and it ended up being several families all in one small apartment. After months of using her gas, electricity and water, parking in her driveway and never paying a dime, she told them she was calling INS ---they left but stole every single thing they could get.

I don't know why all immigrants can't be screen to make sure they're half-way decent and capable of providing for themselves. Also for diseases they may be carrying. If they aren't decent types ---then deport them. If they say they're afraid ---maybe there's good reason they are ---like they never paid bills back home?

I once worked in a real estate office with a gal who was working solely to make her mortgage payments on a rental unit she owned. She rented to a family with seven kids, who, once they moved in, never made a single rent payment. She went through the entire legal process to evict them, but they somehow managed to appeal and get it into court, where the judge ordered her NOT to evict them. He said how do you expect me to put a family with seven children out on the street? When I met her, they had lived free in her place for about 3+ years. As I say, she had to go to work to make the mortgage payments, or lose her place. Needless to say, this took place in liberal Seattle with our judges who should be in asylums themselves.

We have the worst landlord-tennant laws in the country (they totally favor the tenant), and you soon learn to avoid renting to ANY foreigners and any cost. Whatever they pay, you'll lose money. I can't tell you how many times I've had to recarpet and completely re-do places. Many live like primative savages, and absolutely trash the place. You can't get enough of a damage deposit out of them to begin to pay to repair the damage they can do. I've also had problems with Turks, Mexicans, Samoans, Latvians and Ukranians. Also lost a fortune renting to Blacks. Finally thought I had a winner when I rented to an Assistant pastor of a big Black church here. Turned out he went back on drugs and dragged his wife out in the middle of the night at beat her head on the street. He went to jail, and she went off for brain surgery. About six months later I read in the Seattle Times that he killed a guy while robbing him. (You wonder why I hate being a landlord?)

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