A Foreign Policy Test That’s Close to Home : Haitian refugee issue will demand Clinton’s early attention

From Somalia to Iraq, Bill Clinton will have more than enough foreign problems to deal with once he becomes President. But a key foreign policy test for his Administration is shaping up closer to home, in Haiti.

Over the years, many poor refugees have fled Haiti for the United States, often making the dangerous 600-mile sea passage in small boats. But that flow surged after the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by a military coup in September, 1991. Aristide’s political supporters joined the mix of poor people trying to get off the island, creating a confusing refugee situation that the Bush Administration never got a handle on.

At first, Bush ordered U.S. immigration officials to detain Haitian refugees in a special encampment on the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where each refugee was interviewed to determine whether he or she qualified for political asylum. But when the camp reached its 12,000-person capacity, Bush ordered the Coast Guard to return all new Haitian refugees to their home island, without benefit of an asylum hearing. So far about 5,000 have been turned back as a result of that policy, which is being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court as a violation of several international treaties that the United States has signed.

Bush’s Haitian policy was criticized by the Arkansas Democrat during the campaign--and that helped create the Clinton Administration’s potential problem. In Haiti, the criticism was taken as a signal that the next Administration would be liberal on the refugee question; now U.S. immigration specialists fear that a renewed surge in the migration of Haitians will occur after the inauguration. In order to avoid that--and “keep Haitians in Haiti,” in the blunt words of one Clinton adviser--the incoming Administration is preparing to break the President-elect’s promise to not speak out on foreign issues until after his inauguration. Clinton’s office will soon issue a formal statement emphasizing that his Administration intends to fully enforce U.S. immigration laws, while trying to expedite asylum appeals for those Haitians who claim to be political refugees.

That would be a good start, but Clinton should also prepare for the likelihood that even a firm public statement may not deter desperate people from gambling with their lives on the high seas. The next Administration should still have the Coast Guard intercept Haitian boats, but instead of returning the passengers to their homeland it should take them to new refugee centers in the Caribbean. Clinton should ask the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees to help set up those camps, for the problem is international, not just a U.S. issue. Clinton should also restate U.S. support for Aristide and firmly express American determination to not cooperate with any Haitian government that does not include the controversial former Roman Catholic priest.

After Aristide was elected, there was a drop in the Haitian exodus to the United States, the first decline in many years; such was the hope that he inspired among the poor. A sure means of preventing a renewed stream of refugees from Haiti is for Clinton to do all he can to return Aristide to the presidency to which his people freely elected him.