Haitian Refugees Return to Reality : Repatriation: Bush Administration ships 315 back home. But U.S. judge orders a halt.

The 315 people Tuesday filed down the gangplank quietly, passively, their hopes of escape to a dream world of American jobs and political freedom left behind on the waters of the Caribbean.

Their return to reality occurred on the decks of the white U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, a gleaming contrast to the leaky boats they had built by hand for their aborted escape to the United States.

This human shipment was the second repatriation of escaping Haitians since the Bush Administration said Monday that it would not accept those fleeing from the military’s overthrow of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Sept. 30.

The resulting scene at the sun-baked port here was a live replay of decades-old newsreels showing the rejection of the world’s unwanted. In this case, one relief worker said, it is people who are “too poor, too black and too many” to find any haven from the poverty and brutality of the Western Hemisphere’s most politically and economically backward state.

In response to a motion filed by Miami’s Haitian Refugee Center, U.S. District Judge Donald L. Graham on Tuesday ordered the U.S. government to immediately halt forced repatriations of Haitians, pending an emergency hearing next week on whether they are in danger, once returned to this country under military rule.

“This order prevents what we believe is the unlawful deportation of Haitians. . . ,” said Cheryl Little, an attorney for the Refugee Center. “It is extremely dangerous for them to go back, it’s life-threatening. There’s no question about that.”

The State Department, faced with hundreds of Haitian refugees fleeing toward south Florida, had no comment late Tuesday on the order. But earlier, spokesman Richard Boucher simply said: “Our embassy (in Port-au-Prince) will continue to monitor the situation . . . to see that those who are returned are not subject to persecution.”

In Port-au-Prince, the oppressive feel of Tuesday’s events was made worse by the stockyard-like atmosphere of the docks, as plainclothes U.S. security agents herded the returning Haitians into lines while trying to keep reporters away. Armed Haitian troops glared at everyone as the returnees waited patiently for their fate.

“It’s as if they have given up,” said a relief worker.

First off the ship was Lumane Noel, 9. As he led the silent column to a building decorated with the sign “Welcome to Haiti,” his feet dragged in the oversized, shiny cowboy boots that his father had given him when he set out a week ago from the village of Coridor. He had been heading for Miami with 140 others on a homemade boat, powered by a 25-horsepower outboard motor.

More than 300 people later came August Albert, the 31-year-old captain of the 33-foot-long craft. He was carrying the battered motor and muttered about the poor Coast Guard food. In between trudged the others--old and young men, a little girl wearing a pink party dress and white patent leather shoes and Eveline Jean Phillipe, 40, who looked a beaten 65.

In Phillipe’s arms was 6-month-old Wiggins, whose swollen head dwarfed his emaciated body. Around his wrist was a plastic hospital name band with instructions in English for the formula he should have. Phillipe and her baby left last Tuesday from Cap-Haitien, a city without electricity or running water for 25 days.

“There was a boat and I took it with 36 others,” she said. “I had no money and no clothes. I had never seen the sea before. We were caught by the Coast Guard (the next morning). The Americans burned our boat. We spent the next days on the American boat.”

When asked why she left, leaving four older children behind, the gaunt woman lowered her eyes: “I’m 40 and I’m not young anymore. In Haiti there is only misery. . . . I saw that foreign countries were very beautiful and rich. I was looking for better living.”

It was a refrain repeated by nearly all the refugees. The statement and the echoing comments from others--that those who fled Haiti had no political motives--gave a sense of tragic paradox to the day: By telling U.S. officials that they wanted to go to Miami for economic reasons, the Haitians were guaranteed their refusal, because U.S. policy prohibits economic refugees. Yet Haitian officials view anyone seeking to leave for economic reasons as a political opponent, if not a subversive.

So there was an ominous feeling to the proceedings as the returned Haitians were questioned by suspicious officials who took down their names and villages, fingerprinted them and tried to listen to conversations with foreign reporters.

After this processing, each refugee received 50 gourdes ($7). They were then set in the street outside the port to find their own way home, an exhausting task since a worldwide economic boycott has left all but the rich here without fuel or transportation.

One motive for the Bush Administration’s decision to send the refugees back was the expectation that it would set an example, discouraging an even greater wave of illegal immigration. Interviews seemed to support that thought.

“This was my first time,” said Jean Louis, 25, a field hand who has never earned a living wage. “I will not try this adventure again.”

But that was said with a Haitian security agent lurking nearby. In a whispered conversation, August Albert, the owner of the outboard motor, gave a more candid assessment: “This was my second attempt. I was caught before, and I was caught this time. I tried because we are in misery here. We are still in misery here.”

He then grinned, looked down at the outboard motor at his feet and winked.

Times special correspondent Mike Clary in Miami contributed to this report.