Would-Be Migrants Being Sent Back to Haiti

Two days after a boat packed with more than 400 Haitians, Dominicans and Chinese ran aground about a mile off the Florida coast, the U.S. Coast Guard began shipping the would-be migrants home, officials said Sunday night.

Four of the 411 passengers, three of them pregnant women, were brought to shore for medical reasons and are expected to be returned later, said Mike Gilhooly, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The others have been kept on Coast Guard cutters offshore and were being prepared Sunday night for the return to Haiti, where the voyage originated.

“The decision has been made that all of the migrants now on board the two Coast Guard cutters will be returned to Haiti in accordance with U.S. law,” Gilhooly said late Sunday.

Of the 411 passengers, 16 are Dominican, two are Chinese and the rest are Haitian, Coast Guard officials said.

The likely repatriation of the passengers prompted a second day of protests Sunday in front of the Coast Guard station in Miami Beach. About 400 people chanted slogans and carried signs in an effort to get federal officials to allow the group into this country.

The protesters want U.S. laws changed to treat Haitians trying to get into the country more like Cubans, who generally are allowed to remain if they reach shore. Under a U.S.-Haitian agreement, those without proper documents are returned.

Joseph Metelous, 71, of Miami, who arrived from Haiti four years ago, said anyone who makes the treacherous journey in an attempt to reach the United States should be allowed to stay.

He talked about 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez--the Cuban boy found clinging to an inner tube after a boat he and his mother were on sank--and the controversy over whether he should be sent back to his father in Cuba or be allowed to remain with relatives in Miami.

“It’s a biased, racist policy,” said Aude Sicard, a member of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas also spoke up for the Haitians during Sunday’s rally.

“Something must be going on in Haiti for these people to risk their lives, to risk their children’s lives and risk the lives of their family members and seek freedom in the United States,” he said.

The migrants were found packed shoulder to shoulder on a 60-foot-long, 25-foot-wide wooden boat that ran aground early Saturday.

The ship first appeared on the radar of the Coast Guard patrol boat Farallon shortly before midnight Friday. It was running in the dark at five to seven knots, and its crew ignored warnings by radio and loudspeaker from the Farallon that it was headed toward shallow water.

After the boat ran aground on a sandbar, Coast Guard crews tossed life jackets on board and tried to explain to the migrants that the wooden ship was not safe and that, no matter what happened, they would not be allowed to enter the United States, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Andy Blomme said.