U.S. frees Haitian girl after 15 months

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
U.S. frees Haitian girl after 15 months
3
Wed, 01-07-2004 - 5:56pm

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Haitian%20Girl%20Freed


Wednesday, January 7, 2004 · Last updated 11:19 a.m. PT


U.S. frees Haitian girl after 15 months


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


MIAMI -- An orphaned Haitian teenager who spent more than a year in U.S. immigration custody was freed to go live with a relative, but she still could face deportation when she turns 18.


Rose Thermitus, 17, was among more than 200 Haitians who arrived on an overcrowded wooden freighter that ran aground in Miami in October 2002. She was freed from a Miami shelter Tuesday and flew to New York, where she will live with a cousin.


"I am very happy," Thermitus told The Miami Herald. "I didn't believe they would release me."


Her request for asylum had been rejected, but she couldn't be deported to Haiti because the Haitian government had refused to issue a travel visa to a child traveling alone with nowhere to go when she arrived. Her parents are believed dead, and federal officials had failed to find anyone in Haiti willing to take her in.


"I am convinced that releasing Rose today was the right and proper thing to do," said Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He oversees the federal office that is responsible for underage foreigners living illegally in the United States.


U.S. officials could still seek to deport her when she turns 18 and is no longer an unaccompanied minor, said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.


Officials with the Homeland Security Department, which had sought to deport her, had no immediate comment Wednesday.


Thermitus and her older brother left Haiti after the family's home was burned down by a mob. Her brother was deported to Haiti after his asylum request was denied. She does not know where he is now.


Thermitus' case, and those of other children like her, has cast a spotlight on the U.S. government's policy of detaining Haitians indefinitely.


Haitians seeking asylum generally used to be released on bond, free to live with family members while they pursued their claims. But in April, Attorney General John Ashcroft, citing national security concerns and a possible mass migration from Haiti, stated that Haitians must remain in custody while their cases are considered.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 01-08-2004 - 10:19am

>"Thermitus and her older brother left Haiti after the family's home was burned down by a mob. Her brother was deported to Haiti after his asylum request was denied. She does not know where he is now."<


Would it not have been better to allow the brother & this 17 yr.old stay together in the US?


>"Officials with the Homeland Security Department, which had sought to deport her, had no immediate comment Wednesday."<

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 01-08-2004 - 12:01pm

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Haiti%20Student%20Protests


Thursday, January 8, 2004 · Last updated 4:10 a.m. PT


Haiti protests leave at least two dead


By PAISLEY DODDS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- University students marched against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, sparking deadly clashes amid a swelling opposition movement against the leader.


At least two people were killed and more than two dozen injured in Wednesday's protests, the latest in a series aimed at forcing Aristide to step down.


Protests by university students carry great weight in the country of 8 million, where about 40 percent of the people are under 18.


Meanwhile, a spokesman for Michael Bloomberg said the New York mayor still plans to visit Haiti's capital despite the violence.


"At this point, the trip is a go," Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler said Wednesday. Bloomberg plans to arrive in Port-au-Prince on Sunday and stay for about five hours before traveling to Jamaica. About 118,000 New Yorkers are of Haitian descent, according to the 2000 census.


In Haiti, Aristide partisans armed with clubs, bottles and pistols, blocked the marchers, who were joined by thousands of anti-government demonstrators shouting "Freedom!" and "Down with Aristide!" as riot police fired shots to keep the two sides apart.


At the beginning of the protest, Aristide partisans attacked demonstrators, hitting one with a rock and shooting another. Later, police shot and killed an Aristide supporter after he opened fire on the crowd. One anti-government protester also was shot and killed.


At another leg of the march, government partisans opened fire, wounding two demonstrators. The Aristide supporters then surrounded a group of students, stabbing one and beating six others. Students beat two Aristide supporters.


News reports said that 30 people were injured and being treated at hospitals.


"We have no future," student Rodeny Williams said Wednesday as he marched to shouts of support by shopkeepers and street vendors. "We are not afraid."


Gunfire crackled throughout the day as smoke billowed from burning tire barricades and demonstrators regrouped when Aristide supporters attacked with bullets and rocks. Organizers stopped the march when police warned they could no longer guarantee security.


The anti-government demonstrators and students accuse Aristide of hoarding power and failing to help the poor.


Student protests and strikes helped oust President Elie Lescot in 1946, followed by Paul Magloire in 1956. Their opposition also led to the weakening of the Duvalier family dictatorship, which imprisoned many students during its 29-year regime until 1986.


The marchers join a swelling youth protest movement as many face a bleak future. Most Haitians are jobless or without regular work, foreign investment is at a standstill and foreign visas to countries such as the United States and France are increasingly hard to obtain.


"Under Aristide there will be no progress," said protester Leopold Willeens, a 26-year-old student. "I'm the first student in my family to go to university, and I want a better life."


Last month, at least two dozen were injured in violence that broke out after police separated dozens of Aristide backers from about 100 students.


After the ouster of the Duvalier family dictatorship, Aristide was elected in 1990 but overthrown the next year. He was restored in 1994 during a U.S. invasion, serving for two years until a limit on consecutive terms forced him to step down. He has been dogged by political troubles since his 2000 re-election, largely because of legislative elections that observers said were flawed.


The opposition refuses to participate in new elections unless Aristide steps down, but he says he plans to serve out his elected term until 2006.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 01-08-2004 - 12:04pm

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Haiti%20Hunger


Tuesday, January 6, 2004 · Last updated 9:26 p.m. PT


U.N. agency trying to help Haiti


By PAISLEY DODDS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti -- Ravaged by poverty and rising political unrest, parts of northern Haiti are suffering from a hunger crisis that could worsen as aid agencies struggle to resolve the problem with half the food they were expecting, the World Food Program said Tuesday.


The U.N. agency, with the help of Oxfam and Caritas, is trying to deliver emergency aid to northern villages where recent floods have left nearly 25,000 people without food. To feed the neediest, food is being borrowed from school feeding programs.


"These people are barely surviving," said Guy Gauvreau, the World Food Program's officer in Haiti who recently came from its Afghanistan office. "This is a silent crisis but unfortunately donor countries have not made Haiti a priority."


The World Food Program determines need by various means, including field visits, surveying villages and collecting information from the Haitian government and other aid agencies.


The crisis can be seen on the faces of barefooted children running across the sewage-clogged ditches of the Fort Saint Michel slum, outside Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city. Pale with orange-tinted hair - telltale signs of malnutrition - many go days without eating.


Most suffer from chronic diseases. Many die before their fifth birthdays.


"Sometimes I go for a couple days without eating," said Madeline Joseph, 22, holding her sickly 8-month-old son, Youvens Jean. "I try to feed him when I can but it's never enough and he's always sick. I can't take this anymore."


Floods wiped away the maize and cassava harvest in much of the north coast last month, stealing away the little income men earned as farmers. The rains took food off the tables of the poor, and in some areas more than 40 percent are without food, Gauvreau said.


Unlike Afghanistan, which asked for $100 million in donations and received it, Haiti's WFP office asked for $10 million and received less than $5 million.


The crisis comes as deepening poverty and unrest have pushed Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, to its breaking point.


Since mid-September, anti-government protests have surged, leaving at least 42 people dead and littering roads with barricades that hinder food shipments.


"There are demonstrations now every day," said Nelta Jean-Louis, a field worker for the World Food Program. "Sometimes it's too dangerous for us to distribute food when there are burning tire barricades blocking the streets, but the people need this food."


Tensions have been rising since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's party swept flawed 2000 legislative elections.


Cash-strapped and facing growing dissent, the government has been unable to help the very people it promised to help. Once a priest in the slums, Aristide rose to power largely on promises to improve life for the poor.


"So far, we've gotten nothing from the government," Jean-Louis said. "We need help from the outside because the government is unable to meet its responsibilities."


Although tensions have increased, politics has escaped the hungriest.


"I can't read. I can't write. All I care about is figuring out how I will feed my children," said Charite Jevousaime, 52, who is waiting for the aid agencies to help feed her 13 children. "I do the best I can but sometimes the children don't eat."


Most of Haiti's 8 million are jobless or without regular work and live on less than $1 day.


The WFP is helping the neediest families by providing one-month rations of 110 pounds of rice, 22 pounds of pulses and one gallon of vegetable oil.


Oxfam is helping coordinate relief and is starting a flood recovery project with $350,000 from the European Union, said William Gustave, an organization official.


Caritas, through the Cap-Haitien Catholic Diocese, is providing food to help.