Equality on Haitians’ Asylum

Haiti’s bloody coup d’etat against then-President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 1991 sent waves of frightened loyalists onto boats and into desperate flight from their island nation. Most were intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard and, at the peak of the exodus, as many as 40,000 were taken to the U.S. military base in Guantanamo, Cuba. There they were screened by U.S. immigration officials to determine whether they had fair claims for asylum. Little more than 11,000 were found to meet the test of a “credible fear of persecution” that asylum requires. These individuals were provisionally admitted into the United States to pursue political asylum.

Last year, Congress granted asylum to 150,000 Nicaraguans who fled the Central American wars of the 1980s, and it gave more than 5,000 anti-Castro Cubans eligibility for permanent residence. But 30,000 to 40,000 Haitians who are seeking asylum have been excluded. That is unfair.

To remedy this, an impressive array of senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, co-sponsored a bill known as the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act. A similar bill in the House, however, has been blocked by the House immigration subcommittee. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) claimed, inaccurately, that Haitians have been treated better in terms of asylum than other groups. He’s wrong.

For many years now refugees fleeing Communist dictatorships like Cuba have found safe haven in the United States. But brutal oppression is a mark of right-wing dictatorships too, like the pre-Aristide regime in Haiti. The Haitians deserve equal treatment from immigration authorities.

The provisions of pro-Haitian Senate Bill 1504, co-sponsored by Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), Alphonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and six other senators, have been attached to the Senate’s version of the Treasury-postal appropriations bill. When that bill goes to conference committee in early September, the measure with the Haitian asylum provisions should pass.