Guards Abusive, Detained Haitians Say

Acting on complaints that illegal aliens from Haiti have been subjected to physical and sexual abuse by guards, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has asked the Justice Department to investigate conditions at a sprawling federal detention center here on the edge of the Everglades.

In more than 100 affidavits on file with their attorneys, Haitians held at the Krome Avenue Detention Center allege that guards have beaten and threatened them, and once punished a group of women by making them pick up rocks until their hands bled. Some women have also alleged that guards have pressured them for sexual favors after late-night summonses to the center’s health clinic.

The detention facility is operated by the INS. Although persons of all nationalities are occasionally held at Krome pending immigration hearings, the population is predominantly Haitian. Of about 400 persons confined there this week, at least 65% were Haitian, according to INS officials.

Cheryl Little, an attorney for the Haitian Refugee Center, said affidavits collected from detainees over the past 18 months allege widespread “physical, sexual and psychological harassment” at the hands of guards, many of whom are ill-trained and low-paid. The Haitian Refugee Center and other community groups plan to rally 1,000 people Sunday outside the gates of the detention center, about 25 miles west of Miami, in support of their call for a permanent independent review commission to monitor complaints at Krome.

Little said that many Haitians held in Krome “are hesitant to substantiate claims fearing deportation or transfer to remote (INS) facilities in Texas and Louisiana.”

Richard B. Smith, acting INS district director in Miami, agreed that poorly trained guards had committed abusive acts in the past, but said that widespread changes in staffing and improvements to the facility have made conditions “dramatically better.” No longer does INS hire private security firms to work at Krome, for example, he said.

Smith acknowledged, however, that Krome remains understaffed, and many of the INS guards who work at the facility are part-time employees who lack formal training. The problem, Smith said, is exacerbated by low pay. Temporary guards, who get no benefits, start at annual salaries as low as $14,573.

But Ari Sosa, director of the Dade County Community Relations Board, said he and three colleagues--two of them Haitian--”found everything very proper and in order” during a recent two-hour unannounced visit. “There were no complaints of mistreatment, the place was clean, the food was good and morale was high,” said Sosa. “People were not happy; it’s a detention center. But we did not hear any complaints about abuse.”

“We are trying to make life a little bit more livable,” said Smith. But underlying all, he said, is the common discontent among Haitians in Krome over the difference between the way the U.S. government treats refugees from Haiti and those from Cuba and Nicaragua, for example.

While Cubans and Nicaraguans are routinely granted political asylum, Haitians are considered economic rather than political refugees unless they can prove a legitimate fear of persecution should they be returned to their homeland. Few do.

Thus, Haitians making their way to South Florida by boat are turned around by the U.S. Coast Guard and returned to Haiti, or detained if they land. Cubans found at sea are picked up, brought to Miami and usually released to relatives.