Haitian Refugee Number Reaches 490 as U.S. Delays Ruling

The number of Haitians held aboard U.S. Coast Guard ships rose to 490 Monday, and there was still no word from the Bush Administration as to whether the refugees would be returned home or be permitted to continue on to Miami.

The Haitians, who were interdicted at sea after the Sept. 30 military coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, are being held aboard three Coast Guard cutters positioned near the Windward Passage off Haiti’s northern coast.

The first 19 Haitians were picked up two weeks ago. They and the 471 others who followed in 12 other small boats are being fed and are sleeping on the cutters’ decks, according to a Coast Guard spokesman.

The refugees pose a dilemma for the Administration, which had considered relaxing its hard-line immigration policy toward Haiti since the coup and the turmoil it caused. But Bernard Aronson, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, told a congressional subcommittee recently: “The wrong signal could lead to a great number of people trying to come to South Florida, at great risk.”

In the meantime, Haitian advocates who have demanded that the refugees be brought immediately into the United States say the Administration is looking for a third country to take them.

Venezuela, Mexico and Belize have been mentioned, according to Arthur Helton, director of the refugee project for the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights in New York.

“Right now, these people are being used as pawns to lend a sense of urgency to negotiations, and that’s just cynical,” said Helton.