Judges OK Return of Refugees to Haiti : Detainees: However, another jurist’s emergency order again blocks the deportations. Advocates for the boat people plan an appeal.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled on Tuesday that the U.S. government is free to begin repatriation of some 7,000 Haitian refugees now being held in a tent city at a Navy base in Cuba and on U.S. ships at sea.

But in Miami, the judge who was overruled by the panel issued another emergency order late Tuesday blocking any deportations.

U.S. District Judge C. Clyde Atkins issued a temporary restraining order that prevents the government from sending back any Haitians before a hearing he set for Friday morning, said Ira Kurzban, an attorney for the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami.

Atkins’ order was based on federal law barring arbitrary actions by administrative agencies, Kurzban said.

Earlier, advocates for the Haitian refugees said they would file a motion for an emergency stay of the judicial panel’s ruling pending a review by the full U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Cheryl Little, an attorney for the Haitian Refugee Center, which brought the lawsuit challenging the repatriations, called the appeals court panel’s ruling devastating.

“Obviously, we’re extremely disappointed,” she said. “But we’re not surprised. The 11th Circuit is not a liberal court with respect to matters like this. We knew it was an uphill battle.”

If the full court were to uphold the ruling, the U.S. Coast Guard could begin returning Haitians to Port-au-Prince almost immediately, a knowledgeable Defense Department official said.

“We’re ready to act,” he said, adding that between 500 and 700 Haitians could be returned daily and the humanitarian services at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be scaled back nearly as fast. The International Red Cross would assist in the process.

To carry out the repatriations, “Coast Guard vessels steam into the harbor, tie up at the pier, put out the gangplank and let them off,” he said. “It’s exactly what we were doing before.”

However, at the rate of 500 to 700 repatriations a day, “it’s going to be Christmas in Guantanamo Bay for a lot of these Haitians,” one official said. There are about 6,000 refugees at the Guantanamo base.

By a 2-1 vote, the appeals court panel dismissed Atkins’ original injunction, which had halted repatriation of the Haitians, who began fleeing their impoverished country less than a month after the Sept. 30 military coup that forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile. Aristide took office in January and was Haiti’s first democratically elected leader.

“There’s no question in our minds that many of the Haitians, if returned, will face life-threatening situations,” Little said.

The lawsuit that halted the repatriations charged that shipboard interviews of the refugees were insufficient to determine the merits of claims for political asylum. The Bush Administration has argued that the vast majority of the boat people are economic refugees and thus not eligible for entry into the United States. Allowing them into this country would touch off a huge migration from Haiti, Administration officials say.

In New York, Arthur C. Helton, director of the Refugee Project of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, called the decision by the judicial panel “unprincipled and simply wrong.” He said the ruling puts the United States “in default” of its responsibilities under the 1967 United Nations Protocol on the status of refugees.

On Monday, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, responding to an order from Atkins, reported improvements in procedures used to screen Haitians for asylum claims. Refugees are now brought to Guantanamo and each given 20 to 30 minutes to explain why they fear persecution if returned, the government said.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Little said. “But of course, we don’t know if the plan is actually being carried out.”

Since Oct. 29, more than 7,700 Haitians have left the country in small boats, only to be interdicted by the Coast Guard. In addition to the 6,000 refugees being held at the Navy base in Cuba, about 1,000 others are camped on the decks of Coast Guard cutters at sea.

Meanwhile, in the tent city at Guantanamo, opened two weeks ago and already overcrowded, several disturbances have broken out, some involving pushing and shoving between groups of Haitians and military guards.

Staff writer Melissa Healy contributed to this story from Washington. May reported from Atlanta and Clary from Miami.