Flaw in law threatens deportation for Haitian refugees

[Judi Lynn]

Flaw in law threatens deportation for Haitian refugees

By KEN THOMAS
Associated Press Writer

NORTH MIAMI, Fla. --
Nearly a decade after leaving Haiti, Rigaud Rene ends each day with a prayer. He gives thanks for his wife and young son and their life in America - and prays that their time together will endure.

Rene, a former political activist on the island, faces deportation following a lengthy legal battle with immigration authorities.

He says deportation would devastate his family, forcing him to take his 1 1/2-year-old American-born son to Haiti and leave behind his wife. He also will lose a job that helps him send about $300 a month to support family members in Haiti. (snip)

(snip) "All these people knew they were being looked for," said Steven Forester, a senior policy advocate for the Haitian Women of Miami, a nonprofit organization. "If you're being looked for by a regime that's chopping people's faces off, you don't get into a boat."

Those who worked on the 1998 Haitian bill said the "airplane refugees" were not supposed to be left out. Paul Virtue, who served as general counsel at the former INS in 1998-99, said he thought "it was an oversight that they were excluded."
(snip/...)

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031229/APN/312290683

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Too bad for Rigaud Rene he wasn't coming here from Cuba. According to our Cuban "exile" initiated legislation, ALL Cubans who arrive in America DO stay here, regardless of blemishes, like criminal records in their home country.

They are also, through the benevolence of the Cuban Adjustment Act, allowed to receive instant legal status, green cards, work visas, Section 8 taxpayer subsidized housing, food stamps, etc., etc.

This man needs some help, and it's damned apparent the Homeland Security provisions won't protect him whatsoever, while extending unctuous favors to politically desirable immigrants from Cuba.

[DUreader]

1. 2+ hours after posting, falling off the first page

I guess most Dems don't care much either