U.S. in Uncharted Waters in Move to Shelter Haiti Refugees at Cuba Base : Exodus: The plan for a detention camp poses domestic political risks. Some critics fear a repeat of the Cubans’ 1980 Mariel boat lift.

The Bush Administration is taking a calculated risk--one that could backfire logistically and politically--by deciding to hold U.S.-bound Haitian refugees at Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, rather than providing them with shelter on the American mainland.

Although creation of the offshore detention camp may address immediate humanitarian needs, as the Administration hopes, U.S. officials concede that it may not discourage the flow of Haitians determined to risk drowning and starvation to reach U.S. shores.

Indeed, some critics fear that the current situation may eventually turn into another “Mariel”--the infamous exodus of Cuban refugees from the port of Mariel in 1980 that eventually brought 118,000 Cubans to American shores, and many into federal prisons.

The Haitian case also poses domestic political risks because, unlike most of the Cubans in the Mariel boat lift, all of the Haitian refugees are black. Black leaders in this country are complaining that the U.S. policy of sending the Haitians home is racist.

Also, the U.S. policy of denying asylum to refugees fleeing economic misfortune rather than political repression is raising questions. Although most of the Haitians reportedly are citing economic reasons for seeking asylum, the economic slump in Haiti has been worsened by U.S. trade sanctions, which were imposed for political reasons.

“I don’t think it’s anybody’s first option,” a senior U.S. policy-maker said of the move to build a tent city to hold Haitian refugees at Guantanamo. “But against all the other bad options--of letting people drown at sea or taking them to Miami--it doesn’t look as bad.”

Just what would happen if the United States allowed the Haitians to enter the country freely is unclear. Some analysts warn that if the influx should escalate, the United States would be deluged with masses of ill-equipped migrants who might well prove unable to function here.

“The United States is simply going to have to acknowledge the fact it has a responsibility to bring these people out of . . . limbo and bring them to us where they can be reunited with family and friends and where they can receive adequate legal advice and care,” said Niels Frenzen, a Los Angeles attorney volunteering at Miami’s Haitian Refugee Center. “We can’t just warehouse these people.

“It’s costing the U.S. taxpayer an astronomical amount to maintain this detention center, and many of these people have immediate family in the United States who can take over the burden,” Frenzen added.

At a briefing at the Pentagon on Tuesday, Defense Department spokesman Pete Williams appealed to ordinary Haitians to stay home rather than attempt the treacherous boat trip to U.S. waters, only to be interdicted and sent to Guantanamo. U.S. officials on Haiti are issuing similar warnings. “We all hope that more Haitians will not take to boats and set out in the high seas because of the danger of that,” he said, adding that “the conditions on Coast Guard ships are intolerable.”

The armed forces set up a joint task force Tuesday to build a tent city for housing refugees at Camp Bulkeley on the southeast coast of the Guantanamo Bay naval station. Williams said the facilities will be designed to handle 2,500 people and could be expanded later.

The Administration denies that its policy toward Haiti is racist. Policy-makers say that Cuban refugees are almost always granted U.S. asylum because Congress has passed special legislation making it easy for them to qualify.

In the case of Haitians--and all others seeking U.S. asylum--refugees must demonstrate that they are escaping for political reasons to escape repression, not just on economic grounds. They say few Haitians cite political reasons for their flight.

According to U.S. policy-makers, the Administration’s strategy is twofold:

First, it wants to help the refugees for humanitarian reasons. Many are drowning at sea, and Washington wants to stem the death toll. Coast Guard ships are teeming with refugees--and themselves are becoming health hazards to the Haitians. Having refugees aboard also prevents ships from patrolling for more wrecks. “We are down to the point of having the ships full, basically,” one strategist said.

Second, officials are hoping their latest ploy will discourage more Haitians from leaving home--by demonstrating that Guantanamo is the closest to U.S. soil they are likely to get.

They also want to buy more time for Washington to appeal a judge’s order last week prohibiting authorities from returning any more refugees to Haiti. By using a U.S. military base that is located on foreign soil, the Administration can maintain the control it wants over the refugees--and prevent them from establishing a legal foothold on U.S. soil needed to stake a claim to residency here later. It also can avoid the risk that yet another federal judge will intervene in the case. “If you allowed the refugees onto U.S. territory,” one strategist said, “you would make it possible for them to start up a court battle.”

Despite such outward caution, Administration officials are swallowing hard in hopes that the exodus from Haiti doesn’t accelerate, as critics have been warning, turning the situation into another Mariel--with serious domestic and international implications.

The statistics so far are not encouraging. On Sunday, the Coast Guard rescued 815 Haitians--the most for any one day since the wave of immigration began, and on Tuesday authorities picked up four boatloads containing 150 more refugees. The total number of Haitians now being held by U.S. authorities is 5,036--already more than the Guantanamo tents can hold.

But U.S. officials point to several key differences between the current situation and the one that prevailed during the 1980 exodus from Cuba, which they say may well make a second Mariel unlikely: Unlike the Mariel boat lift, in which refugees were picked up and transported to U.S. shores by relatively affluent Cubans in Florida, the Haitians have no built-in network to help ferry them here. The few boats available in Haiti are rapidly being used up.

“That doesn’t mean that we won’t get a few more thousand” refugees, said one policy planner. “But it does mean that we won’t get 100,000,” as was the case during Mariel.

Administration officials also contend that, while blacks in New York and some other big cities are clamoring for free entry for the Haitians, blacks and Latinos in South Florida oppose any relaxation of barriers--a factor that could blunt the political pressure here.

One factor on which the Administration is counting is that upper-class Haitians, who helped start the coup that overthrew the Haitian government on Sept. 30, have been hurt the most by the U.S. economic embargo of Haiti. Administration officials hope that the upper class is smarting enough to persuade the Haitian army to back away from the military regime and move toward some sort of a compromise. “I think we have seen a shift in the civilian elite,” said one policy-maker.

U.S. officials concede there are larger risks for the United States--particularly for Bush’s generally successful effort to reinstate democracy in Latin America. Although a setback in Haiti is not in itself likely to reverse that trend, “it’s a very severe test for us,” one official said. “The precedents we set in handling Haiti will be looked at in Argentina and Peru. So that complicates the flexibility in dealing with that.

“It’s a messy situation, unfortunately,” he conceded.

Shelters for Haitians at Guantanamo

The Pentagon is building an emergency camp inside the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to temporarily house Haitian refugees.

U.S. PERSONNEL

* A task force of 850 is being sent, including the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion from Ft. Bragg, N.C.; 4th Psychological Operations Group from Ft. Bragg; 2nd Force Service Group, Camp Lejeune; N.C., Bureau of Naval Medicine, Bethesda, Md.; Atlantic Fleet Construction Battalions (Seabees), Norfolk, Va.; Military Airlift Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

REFUGEE FACILITIES

* 135 tents, to house 2,500 Haitians, will be erected by this weekend at Camp Bulkeley, on the southeast coast of naval base.

* About 650 Haitians are now housed in cinder-block buildings and Quonset huts at Camp Bulkeley.

* Some Haitians will remain on Coast Guard ships. About 250 will go to La Ceiba, Honduras. Venezuela has accepted about 100.

THE HAITIAN FLIGHT

* The Coast Guard has picked up 5,036 since Oct. 29, including 506 on Monday and 815 on Sunday, the largest single-day total.

* 1,000 Haitians are aboard two Navy ships at Guantanamo; 3,100 are on 15 Coast Guard cutters in the area.