NCHR and United States Refugee and Immigration Policy

NCHR pioneered national litigation, education and advocacy efforts designed to halt the deportation and secure the legal status of Haitian boat people during the Reagan, Bush and Clinton Administrations. The Coalition's efforts over several years have been instrumental in gaining passage of reforms in US immigration law enabling more than 40,000 Haitians to attain legal residency. As a plaintiff in a landmark case against the Department of Justice, NCHR helped secure parole into the US for nearly three hundred Haitian asylum-seekers who had been quarantined for as long as twenty months at the US naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. This legal effort led ultimately to the closing of what was probably the world's first prison camp for HIV-positive refugees.

Finally, NCHR was responsible for developing a strategy -- eventually adopted by the Clinton Administration -- for ending the refugee emergency and restoring democracy and President Aristide to Haiti in the wake of the 1991 military coup against Aristide. NCHR brought together a diverse alliance of labor, religious welfare, immigrants rights and human rights groups to press for implementation of our proposal and led the efforts in the US to galvanize opposition to the discriminatory and unlawful interdiction and repatriation policy.

At present, NCHR continues to monitor the processing of the remaining Haitian refugees who are pressing asylum claims in US immigration proceedings and to advocate for fair and humane immigration and refugee laws in accordance with international norms.