Refugee & Migration News

Detainees Taste Freedom Thanks to New Haitian Legal Aid Fund
Miami, February 21, 2003 -- More than 100 days after his arrival with 228 men, women and children fleeing Haiti’s ever-growing instability, Henrilus Tertilus won his freedom Wednesday – at least temporarily – thanks in part to a new legal defense fund.

Fund Created To Assist Haitian Detainees
New York and Miami, November 21, 2002 -- Televised scenes of Haitians scrambling overboard in a desperate attempt to reach Miami's shores last month won't be easily forgotten.  But the plight of these Haitians currently in INS detention will be unless we do something immediately

Advocates Express Bitter Disappointment Over Latest INS Directive and Demand Fair Treatment of Haitians                                                                                                
New York, NY, November 13, 2002 -- The National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC) decry a Bush administration decision, announced late Friday afternoon, to subject all non-Cuban asylum seekers arriving in the United States by sea to mandatory detention and expedited removal proceedings. The new policy, intended to deflect growing criticism of the Administration’s discriminatory handling of Haitian refugees, follows a controversial national security rule, which was put in place after September 11. INS invoked this rule in order to prevent the Haitians who arrived on October 29 from being released on bond.

NCHR expresses concern over arrival of Haitian refugees
New York, 30 October 2002 -- The National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) is deeply concerned over the treatment of the 230 Haitians who arrived off the shores of Miami on Tuesday afternoon.

INS Commissioner To Visit Detention Facilities But Haitian Coalition Still Calls for Reversal of Policy 
new York, 12 July 2002 -- Eight months after his agency changed its policy and began detaining hundreds of Haitian asylum seekers in Miami and in response to repeated requests from NCHR, several lawmakers and other advocates to address the issue, INS Commissioner James Ziglar is visiting the South Florida detention facilities.

Deported or Dumped?
December 2000 -- Canada and the U.S. are deporting criminals back to the Caribbean -- criminals who were born there but, in many cases, raised in North America. Whose problem are they?

Haitian Rights Group Argues for Regional Approach In Response to New Round of Dominican Expulsions of Haitian Immigrants
November 1999 -- For the second time in three years, the government of the Dominican Republic has launched a military-led campaign of massive expulsions of Haitian immigrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent, leading to the forced deportation of several men, women and children since early October.