BRIEFING BOOK : Haitians With HIV Stuck in Legal Limbo at Guantanamo Base : More than 250 refugees have legitimate claims for political asylum. But they are barred from the United States because of their infection and are staging a hunger strike.

More than 250 Haitian refugees being held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba, most of whom have tested HIV-positive, entered the fifth day of a hunger strike Tuesday in an effort to persuade the Clinton Administration to permit them into the United States.

The refugees, many who have been in detention at Guantanamo for more than a year, are caught in a legal Catch-22. Found to have plausible political asylum claims, they cannot be returned to Haiti. But current U.S. policy also prevents anyone who carries the virus that causes AIDS from entering the country without a special exemption.

Background

Last week three HIV-positive Haitians were taken from a U.S. immigration detention camp in Miami and flown to New York, where they were paroled to a Brooklyn AIDS hospice. All have serious health problems, their attorneys said, and will be treated for various ailments while they await political asylum hearings.

The three are the latest of about 30 HIV-positive Haitians who have been quietly brought into the United States for medical treatment, after having fled their impoverished homeland only to be picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard. Until October, they had been quarantined with the other HIV-positive refugees who remain in a chicken coop-like barracks at Guantanamo on Cuba’s eastern tip.

Comment

“Bringing people to the U.S. for treatment looks humanitarian only next to the Neanderthal policy of not paroling them into the community in the first place. And without an attorney general, we can’t get anybody in the Clinton Administration to respond on this issue.”-- Michael Ratner, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York

Haitians and AIDS

In the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, Haitians were tagged as one of the three “high-risk Hs”--along with homosexuals and hemophiliacs. Until January, 1991, in fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned any people born in Haiti from donating blood after the rate of AIDS infection among Haitians was found to be slightly higher than that of other nationalities. Moreover, Haitians were the only identifiable group in which transmission of the disease was primarily heterosexual.

Although the ban on Haitian-born blood donors has been lifted, the stigma remains. “Poor and AIDS--it’s another part of the stereotype,” says Rolande Dorancy, executive director of the Haitian Refugee Center.

The U.S. Public Health Service reports that about 5% of Haitians interdicted at sea and then tested at Guantanamo were found to be HIV-positive. But without comparative data from other ethnic groups, it is uncertain what that number means.

Last month, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees wrote to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Deputy Commissioner Ricardo Inzunza to argue that the detention of HIV-positive Haitians “is not an appropriate means of dealing with this problem.”

Grover Joseph Rees, INS general counsel, says the ban on immigrants who test positive for HIV can be superseded only by “a strong humanitarian reason, such as the unavailability of specialized medical care.” That explains how about 30 HIV-positive Haitians have been allowed in. Many have been pregnant women.

Outlook

As the Clinton Administration works to stanch the flow of refugees from Haiti by returning ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the palace, Haitian advocates are lobbying for changes in U.S. immigration policy, which they say discriminates on the basis of color. A class-action lawsuit, scheduled for trial March 8 in a New York federal court, charges that INS policy toward Haitians is unconstitutional on the grounds of the HIV exclusion and the denial of counsel to the refugees.

At Guantanamo

The Haitians at Guantanamo, frustrated by waiting, decided to try to force the issue by refusing food. Most of the refugees also have moved out of the barracks and set up camp in the middle of a soccer field, said U.S. Air Force Capt. Jamie Scearse, a spokeswoman for the military task force overseeing the camp. “Most are drinking liquids, and no one has been admitted to the clinic,” Scearse said Tuesday.

INS spokesman Duke Austin in Washington said the hunger strike would not gain them admittance to the United States. Representatives of the Center for Constitutional Rights were due to arrive at the camp late Tuesday.

Meanwhile, President Clinton could affect the fate of the 267 refugees who remain at Guantanamo by doing away with the ban on immigrants who test positive for HIV. During the presidential campaign, he indicated that he would do so.

Until something changes, Ratner says, the Haitians at Guantanamo are “in a legal limbo, waiting to become sick enough to be medevaced to the United States for treatment.”

“My sense is that the situation is pretty desperate. The people are hopeful that Clinton will get them out of there. That’s sustaining them. This thing could be resolved immediately without lifting the HIV exclusion. Just parole them in. And that would be a good signal that the Clinton Administration is not completely hostile to Haitians or blacks.”

The Exodus by the Numbers

Here are facts and figures on the refugees who have fled Haiti. Numbers are for Oct. 1, 1991, through June 24, 1992:

Seized at sea by U.S.: 36,985

Returned to Haiti: 23,880

Allowed into U.S. because of asylum claims: 10,736

More to come? Coast Guard officials have estimated that more than 1,000 boats are under construction in Haiti, sparking fears in South Florida that more than 100,000 Haitians could set sail if the United States opens the door.

GUANTANAMO NAVAL BASE

A camp set up at the U.S. base at Guantanamo, Cuba, in October, 1991, held up to 12,500 Haitians before it was dismantled last summer. Only the Haitians who are HIV-positive, and a few of their family members, remain.

Haitians as of Tuesday: 267

HIV-positive: 215

Number of children (untested): 37

MILESTONES

1957: Duvalier reign begins in Haiti when Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier comes to power. He dies in 1971 and his son, Jean-Claude (Baby Doc), takes control of the country.

February, 1986: Jean-Claude Duvalier ousted. A succession of military regimes follows.

December, 1990: Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes Haiti’s first democratically elected president.

September, 1991: Aristide ousted from power by military coup. His departure triggers an exodus of people fleeing Haiti.

October, 1991: U.S. imposes a trade embargo.

November, 1991: U.S. orders Coast Guard to begin shipping back Haitian boat people.

January, 1993: U.S. vessels ordered to prevent an exodus of boat people. President-elect Clinton pleads with Haitians to stay home.

Sources: U.S. Navy Atlantic Command, Norfolk, Va.; U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Milestones compiled by Times researcher D’Jamila Salem

Cost of a Voyage: Haitians say the 600-mile voyage to Miami costs from $300 to $700 and a typical Haitian earns $380 a year. The construction of the flimsy wooden boats can cost up to $10,000.

Routes traveled by refugees