Haiti Refugee Count Drops to Zero : Caribbean: Officials report no sea rescues during last three days. Reversal of U.S. policy credited for sharp decline.

The surge of Haitian refugees--which once threatened to swamp the U.S. immigration system and figured as a key element in justifying a U.S. invasion--has dropped to insignificance, at least for now.

There were no reports over the weekend of U.S. vessels rescuing Haitians fleeing their homeland by sea, said U.S. Embassy spokesman Stanley Shrager, who noted: “The number on Saturday was zero. The number on Sunday was zero.”

And officials in Washington said no Haitians were rescued Monday--a stunning change since the first week of July, when 12,345 Haitians were picked up by U.S. Coast Guard vessels; more than 3,300 Haitian refugees were intercepted on July 4 alone.

The earlier flight evidently was driven by the then-applicable Clinton Administration policy, under which any Haitians picked up at sea were to receive quick processing on requests for refugee status. As such they enjoyed a better chance of being allowed to enter the United States. This stance was a sharp reversal from the previous policy, under which almost every refugee found at sea was returned to Haiti.

But the new immigration directive apparently helped push thousands of Haitians to take to rickety craft in a desperate, largely futile search for a better life in America or other international aid.

The situation rapidly became a crisis, especially after exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide refused to urge his countrymen to stay home, leading some Americans to engage in shrill talk about a stepped-up schedule for a U.S. military intervention here, in part to stem the immigration problem.

President Clinton had listed the Haitian refugee problem as one of the crucial U.S. interests that could justify armed intervention. Some diplomats in Port-au-Prince suggested that Aristide exploited Clinton’s statement to pressure the United States to act more strongly against the military leaders who ousted him in September, 1991.

Cautious against the possibility that the immigration crisis could resume, Shrager said in an interview Monday that the reason for its stark pause might be attributable in part to high seas and even the Haitian preoccupation with soccer’s World Cup.

But he also insisted that the major factor appears to be that “the message seems to be getting out--if you take a boat (out of Haiti), you won’t get to the United States.”

The President, in Miami to promote his health care reform proposal, pointedly did not address the Haitian crisis, even though South Florida, which already has the nation’s largest Haitian population, is preoccupied with the prospect of more Haitians fleeing there from their country, the Hemisphere’s poorest.

Critics have assailed the President for what they term his meandering policy on Haiti and Haitian refugees. After suggesting that Haitian refugees would get speedy processing for possible U.S. immigration, the Administration declared July 8 that the United States would no longer accept them, but would instead send the fleeing Haitians to havens in other countries until their nation’s political crisis was resolved or they returned home.

On Monday, about 451 Haitian refugees opted for repatriation rather than stay at the only existing haven for them: the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Shrager said that an average of 30% to 40% of the 14,000 or so Haitians stopped by the Coast Guard this month are asking to return to Haiti rather than live in a tent city. This shows, he said, that “most (Haitian refugees) want to go to the United States” and are not necessarily only seeking to escape political oppression and human rights violations at home.

The decline in refugees has been aided in part by radio broadcasts and other institutional communications advertising America’s tougher new policy. But most experts think the major reduction can be attributed to the Haitians’ internal oral and personal network.

“When the (refugees) themselves realized what was happening and started coming back, they told their townsmen that no one was getting to the States,” said one U.S. official, “and that did it.”

Times staff writers Norman Kempster in Washington and Paul Richter in Miami contributed to this report.