Return of Haitian Refugees Upheld by Supreme Court : Ruling: U.S. policy of picking up boat people and sending them back home is reinstated. Critics blast ‘floating Berlin Wall.’ A full hearing is expected this fall.

The Supreme Court gave the Bush Administration the authority Saturday to resume its policy of picking up Haitian refugees on the high seas and returning them to their troubled island homeland without considering their reasons for fleeing.

On a 7-2 vote, the justices lifted, at least temporarily, a ruling by a federal appeals court in New York that declared this policy illegal. The high court is likely to hear arguments this fall on whether U.S. laws protect refugees before they reach American territory.

Lawyers for the Haitians had dubbed the Administration’s immediate-return policy “a floating Berlin Wall” that violated both human rights accords and the Refugee Act of 1980.

That measure says U.S. officials “shall not deport or return any alien . . . if such alien’s life or freedom would be threatened” because of political persecution. Government lawyers contend that this law does not protect aliens on the high seas.

Saturday’s order marked the third time this year that the justices have acted to clear the way for the return of fleeing Haitians. In a series of recent rulings on immigration matters, the court has given the executive branch broad leeway to determine who will be admitted to the United States.

Lawyers for the Haitians denounced the court as well as the Administration, saying they ignore human rights and international law when it is convenient.

“The Bush Administration is fond of urging other nations to comply with international law, but it flouts its legal obligations when the problem is right in its own back yard,” said Lucas Guttentag, a lawyer for the Immigrants’ Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr said the Administration had been faced with “a life-threatening crisis on the high seas.” Thousands of Haitians had set out in shaky vessels into the Caribbean Sea during the spring months, endangering their lives and overwhelming the ability of Coast Guard officials to consider them individually, he said.

Acting on Starr’s petition, the high court reinstated a policy announced by President Bush on May 24. In order “to protect the lives of Haitians whose boats are not equipped for the 600-mile sea journey,” the President directed U.S. Coast Guard cutters to intercept vessels “engaged in the irregular transportation of persons” and to immediately send the boats back where they came from.

The White House said more than 34,000 Haitians had fled the island since a military coup in September ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The tide of refugees “led to a dangerous and unmanageable situation,” the President said.

Just two months earlier, Justice Department lawyers had assured the court that fleeing Haitians would be given a brief, individual “screening” hearing aboard Coast Guard cutters to determine their reasons for fleeing.

If they were fleeing poverty or disorder, they were not entitled to enter the United States and could be “screened out” and sent home. However, if they had a “well-founded fear of persecution” in Haiti, they were to be “screened in” to a special refugee center established at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay and given a further hearing on whether they were entitled to permanent asylum.

Under that approach used before May 24, about one-third of the fleeing Haitians were “screened in” for further consideration of their bids for asylum, filling the Guantanamo refugee center to capacity. In two brief orders arising from cases filed in Miami, the high court had upheld this means of processing the fleeing Haitians and rejected lower court rulings that deemed this approach insufficient.

But with the refugee center about to overflow, Bush’s May 24 order abandoned that practice of screening the refugees and asserted that neither U.S. law nor this nation’s obligations under the United Nations treaties on refugees “extend to persons located outside the territory of the United States.”

In response, lawyers for the Haitians filed new lawsuits in New York. On Wednesday, the federal appeals court there ruled on a 2-1 vote that the “plain language” of the Refugee Act covers “any alien,” including those on the high seas. It ordered that Bush’s immediate-return policy be suspended.

But the justices in turn suspended that appellate order while they review the entire matter.

Justices Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens filed a brief dissent, arguing that the Bush policy should have been suspended while the appeals are weighed.

“While the government has offered a vague invocation of harm to foreign policy, immigration policy and the federal Treasury, the plaintiffs in this case face the real and immediate prospect of persecution, terror and possibly even death at the hands of those to whom they are being forcibly returned,” Blackmun said.

Nonetheless, Saturday’s court order sets the stage for a full-scale hearing and written ruling on the issue by early next year.

Administration lawyers were told to file by Aug. 24 an appeal of Wednesday’s ruling by the New York-based court. By Sept. 8, lawyers for the Haitians must file briefs defending the decision, giving the justices a chance to consider the case when they return to business on the first Monday in October.

After reviewing those briefs, the justices could issue an immediate ruling, or, as is more likely, agree to hear full arguments in the case.

“Since the federal appeals courts are split on this (immigration law question), the chances of having this case heard are very good,” said court spokeswoman Toni House.