African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
6 p., Argues the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians -- and particularly the redesignation of the eligibility period -- demonstrates the best of what the Administration can do using its executive branch authority to improve the quality of people's lives. It demonstrates a commitment to good immigration policy and to "good government" policies such as greater transparency and coordination. In the Haitian context, the Department of Homeland Security should also implement a program to grant humanitarian parole to the estimated 105,000 Haitian already approved as beneficiaries of family-based visa petitions, just as has been done for Cubans under the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program.
Discusses the deportation of foreign-born youth with criminal convictions to Haiti, other Caribbean countries, and Central America, based on 1996 laws allowing the US Immigration and Naturalization Service to deny due process to non-citizens.
Jamaica is doing so well that it was not even in the top 14 nations receiving the most deportees in 2009. Instead, for the Caribbean region, the top three nations receiving the most deportees last year, were the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Haiti. Mexico continued to lead the deportees statistics table. Mexican nationals accounted for 86 percent of the 613,003 aliens apprehended in 2009. The next leading countries were Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, China, and Brazil. A total of 393,000 foreign nationals were removed from the United States last year, the seventh consecutive record high. Of that number, 128,000 were known criminal aliens.
"It's a complete tragedy, a complete disregard for human life," said Lemorin's lawyer, Charles Kuck. "Haiti is still an unmitigated disaster.'' In January, the moratorium not in effect will be lifted and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will resume the deportation of Haitian nationals convicted of crimes in the U.S. Lemorin's lawyers says that while his client has no conviction, he is being included with those who do. However, his deportation under the specific circumstances of his case would be highly unusual, according to legal experts. But his ability to remain in the U.S. is not the only issue at hand. He would be forced to leave his wife and their three children who reside in North Miami Beach. His wife, Charlene Mingo Lemorin, 31, is being treated for kidney failure and her medical condition precludes her from moving the family to Haiti. "Without letting us know they'll resume deportation to Haiti, at a time when Haiti is living under its gravest crisis, it's so unfair," said Marliene Bastien, who heads the Haitian Women of Miami. "It's supposed to be a progressive government. We're gravely disappointed."
Two Florida Democratic congressmen have been pushing the [George W. Bush] administration to permanently cease deportation of Haitians because of the hardship being experienced in the impoverished country. Kendrick Meek and Alcee L. Hastings, strong Haitian cates, have assailed the istration's policy on Haiti, ing that Haitians have, for long, been victimized by Washington's "double standard" immigration policies. Meek, who represents Miami, said Haiti "over-qualifies" for TPS, bestowed when the U.S. government determines eligible nationals are temporarily unable to safely return to their home country because of ongoing conflicts, environmental disasters or other "extraordinary and temporary conditions."
He and his brother, Reagan Ulysse, 25, had been detained together until March 11, when Reagan was abruptly transferred to a distant immigration jail, leaving [Jackson Ulysse] not knowing where he was. But by Thursday evening a family friend had picked up Jackson and was driving him to pick up Reagan from the lobby of the Krome Detention Center in Miami. "That's what I want - to see my brother, to see that they let him go, I want to hug him," Jackson said in French in a telephone interview. "I'm very happy, and I'm going to church to thank God." The brothers' uncle, Virgile Ulysse, 69, a United States citizen who will take them in to his home in Norwalk, Conn., was also full of gratitude. "Thank the United States for Jackson and Reagan's release," he said in a telephone message.
An editorial asserts that the environmental summit is important but criticizes the world leaders for meeting in the comfort and lush scenery of Rio de Janeiro Brazil while deported Haitian refugees face almost certain torture and death, concluding that blacks have only "half-a-life" in leaders' eyes.
Discusses the 1978 case of seven Jamaican women who were to be deported from Canada and the questions the case raised about the value of women's labor and discriminatory immigration policies. Elucidates why the women, in their roles as mothers, decided to challenge the orders to leave Canada and illuminates the ways in which racialized women find the means to negotiate in-between spaces that allow them to survive.
