August 1994 Volume 0 Number 4

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The Clinton administration spent the month of July fine-tuning its policy on Haitian refugees. At the end of July, the US was on the verge of obtaining UN Security Council permission to invade Haiti and restore President Aristide to power.

Haitians have been leaving their country in small boats for years. Since 1981, Haiti has allowed the US Coast Guard to stop boats in Haitian and international waters to determine whether they were carrying Haitians to the US.

The US has followed a zig-zag path on its treatment of "Haitian boat people." On June 16, the US announced that henceforth Haitians picked up at sea and seeking asylum would be eligible to present to US asylum officers on board US ships evidence that they face persecution in Haiti. As a result, over 11,627 Haitians were picked up by the US Coast Guard by July 6--many hoped that they would be granted refugee status and allowed to go to the United States. Those turned down, about 70 percent of those requesting asylum, continue to be returned to Haiti.

Clinton changed the policy on July 5. After that date, Haitians picked up at sea were sent to the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to present their case for asylum. If they were deemed in need of safe haven, they were sent to safe haven camps, but not to the US. Most nearby Caribbean nations have refused to provide safe haven for Haitians.

After the Clinton administration stopped shipboard hearings for refugees in mid-July, the number of Haitians picked up by the Coast Guard dramatically dropped. The week of July 16, not a single Haitian was picked up, compared to the 1,340 people picked up the previous weekend. The decline was attributed to a number of factors including choppy seas and soccer's World Cup. Another factor was that word was reaching the interior that refugees intercepted at sea will no longer be able to settle in the US. Members of the clergy and relief organizations also report the Haitian government is attempting to staunch the flow of refugees. The relief workers say that this has meant an increase in repression, especially in the coastal towns from where the refugees leave.

In mid-July, there were 16,500 Haitians at Guantanamo, and a few hundred began to trickle back to Haiti after they learned that, even if they could prove they needed safe haven, they would not be going to the US. Haitians who return to Haiti are interviewed by Haitian immigration authorities and given money to return home by the Haitian Red Cross.

The Clinton Administration is scrambling to find places to house the Haitians who have been deemed in need of safe haven. Panama's President Guillermo Endra first agreed to allow the United States to admit 10,000 Haitian refugees then later rescinded his approval. Panama planned to allow the Haitians to enter Panama on a temporary basis, until a change in the current Haitian government or a time period not to exceed one year, but bowed to internal pressure not to allow any Haitians in the country. On July 25, Honduras announced that it would shelter up to 40,000 Haitians temporarily in exchange for increased US aid.

This zig-zagging Haitian policy prompted a spate of critical reviews of US refugee and asylum policies. Most began with the 22 words in the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees--an alien who can prove that he or she faces "a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion" should enjoy nonrefoulement in a safe country--the right not to be returned to danger.

US law applies this standard to two kinds of persons in danger of persecution in their country of citizenship. Refugees are outside the US, and they seek to enter because of the dangers they face at home, and asylum seekers or asylees arrive in the US and ask to stay because of danger at home.

The problem, according to critics, is that the US does not apply these standards consistently. There are about 19 million refugees worldwide, and the US establishes a worldwide limit annually on the number it will accept each year--121,000 in FY94. The distribution of refugees admitted to the US reflects domestic political considerations rather than the worldwide distribution of persons needing safety from persecution. In 1993, 41 percent of the refugees admitted to the US were Jews or Evangelical Christians from the former USSR, and 32 percent were from Vietnam and Laos. Many of these refugees are admitted after they show that they face a lesser "credible" fear of persecution rather than the "well-founded" fear in the Geneva Convention.

Once admitted to the US, refugees receive public assistance and health care services at rates paid by the state in which they live. States are reimbursed for up to eight months of assistance, even though a majority or e.g., southeast Asian refugees in California, receive public assistance for more than five years.

Asylum policy is even more controversial. In 1993, just over 10,000 asylum applications were filed each month by aliens in the US --113, 290, including 31 percent from Guatemala, 13 percent from El Salvador, and 12 percent from China. Each application can be for a family--the number of persons represented by these applications is almost twice the number of applications. There are over 400,000 asylum cases that have not yet been processed, representing some 700,000 to 800,000 persons, and US courts routinely order the INS to reconsider applications from particular countries because of what the court considers to be "biases" in the consideration of applications.

To apply for asylum, persons fill out an INS form, and then, in most cases, asylum applicants are given work permits and told to keep the INS informed of their current address so that they can be called to an INS hearing to prove to an asylum officer that they face persecution at home. The INS has switched to a last-in , first-out policy--deciding current applications first, but this means that some asylum applications are more than three years old.

Cuba and Haiti represent stark contrasts in US policy. All Cubans who reach the US can become immigrants. On July 1, 1994, a group of 140 Cubans, the largest boatload to arrive in a decade, sailed into Miami Beach. The continuing deterioration of the Cuban economy has caused a dramatic increase in arrivals from Cuba. In June 1994, the US Coast Guard rescued 1,173 Cubans, six times more than they rescued in June, 1993.

Haiti, by contrast, is the only country for which the US insists that persons fleeing persecution apply within the country of persecution. Since February 1992, some 59,000 Haitians filled out preliminary questionnaires for themselves and/or their families. About 17,000 of them were interviewed in Haiti by US asylum officers, and 4,000 were deemed in danger and admitted to the US.


Michael Gordon, "In Policy Shift, US Will Admit No Haitians at Sea," New York Times, July 6, 1994. Roberto Suro, "Different Strokes for Different Refugees," Washington Post Weekly Edition, July 4-10, 1994, 33. "America's Least Wanted," The Economist, July 16, 1994, 23-4. "President Endera agrees to US request to accept 10,000 Haitian refugees; states conditions." BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, July 6, 1994. Kieran Murray, "Haitian-US Tensions rise amid swelling refugee tide," Reuters world service, July 5, 1994. "US notes big increase in urban refugees," Houston chronicle, July 2, 1994. Larry Rohter, "Number of Haitians Fleeing by Sea Drops off Abruptly," New York Times, July 20, 1994.