by Carl Hiaasen
After all the bloodshed and terror, Haitians fleeing to the United States are still being turned back, and many of those here still face deportation.
So I was wondering what it takes to be considered a political refugee, when along comes the case of Madalina Liliana Voinea. She is a ^-year-old tennis player from the Communist-bloc country of Romania.
You'll remember that, shortly before Christmas, Madalina came to Miami Beach to play in the Rolex International Tennis Championships at Flamingo Park. After a scheduling mix-up, she got in a cab, went to the Miami airport and asked for asylum.
You've never seen our government work so fast.
After a two-hour interview, INS district director Perry Rivkind decided that Madalina would face persecution if she went back to her homeland. Said Rivkind: "If she returned, she would be restricted from playing tennis, from going to college, and maybe she would be jailed."
Asylum was promptly granted, a press conference was called and a new media sweetheart was born. Madalina immediately got on a plane to New York, where, according to United Press International, she "spent the day shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue and strolling down Fifth Avenue admiring the window displays."
Personally, I wouldn't want to go back to Romania either, but the haste and fanfare with which the INS welcomed Madalina to America is puzzling to other applicants.
The usual criterion for granting political asylum is a "well-founded fear" of persecution. As human rights violations go, it's hard to compare a machete murder with somebody nixing a six-figure endorsement deal for Puma tennis sneakers.
Madalina came here courtesy of the Romanian government, which regards its promising young athletes as national assets, and treats them accordingly. Compared to most of her countrymen, she led the charmed life. Compared to Haitians, she lived in a paradise.
Based on the examples of Ivan Lendl and Martina Navratilova, it certainly will be easier for Madalina to become a millionaire as an American. This is true for athletes from practically any other country, Communist or not. Everyone wants to play in the United States because there's more money here.
Haiti doesn't produce many international tennis stars, as most people are too busy trying to find food and avoid getting shot by government-backed goons.
Given Madalina's case, if I were scheming to escape Haiti—and who wouldn't be, with the rigged election coming up?—the first thing I'd do is get myself an inexpensive tennis racket.
As soon as I got stopped by the Coast Guard or Border Patrol, I'd tell them that I was a budding tennis star, trying to make it to Wimbledon. I'd say that I could never go back to Haiti—not because of the gross political atrocities, but because they don't have any good grass courts.
What would the INS say to this? Imagine the scene if the next rickety boat to hit our beach delivered 200 people carrying Wilson tennis rackets and asking where's the next tournament.
Something tells me there would be no big press conferences, no happy feature stories, no trip to New York for a stroll down Fifth Avenue.
Somebody in Washington would come up with a new excuse as to why young Madalina Voinea is welcome, and the Haitians are not.
Maybe it would be the tennis rackets themselves. Maybe only refugees playing with graphite get asylum.
Immigration's double standard is an outrage
July 15, 1991
Sen. Connie Mack has arrived at the startling conclusion that U.S. immigration policy appears unfair in its disparate treatment of Haitian and Cuban refugees.
There's a real shocker. The Haitians have been getting shafted for only about a dozen years now. It's nice that somebody in Washington finally noticed.
Mack's moment of revelation came after two outrageous incidents made the double standard impossible to ignore.
On July 7, a Coast Guard cutter intercepted a wooden sailboat packed with 161 Haitian refugees and two Cuban rafters, whom the Haitians had rescued at sea. The Cubans were brought to Miami, while most of the Haitians were returned to Port-au-Prince.
Even the most cold-hearted bureaucrat could grasp the awful irony. To the Haitians on that creaky sailboat, the Cuban rafters must've seemed like kindred travelers—poor, like themselves, but brave enough to risk an ocean crossing in pursuit of a new life. Of course the Haitians would reach out and help; they shared the same dream.
Then with the interdiction came the bad news, and excuses: The Cubans get to stay because Cuba won't take them back. The Haitians have to go because Haiti will. So much for being good Samaritans. News of the refugees' plight sent a crackle of anger through Miami's Haitian community. This time the discrimination was so flagrant—and the juxtaposition so sad—that politicians had no place to hide. How could one seriously defend a policy that welcomed Cuban refugees but rejected the Haitians who had saved them?
Last week, a new spark erupted. All it took was one stark, indelible image on television: Haitian stowaways, manacled and caged on the hot deck of a freighter.
It could've been a flashback to the 1500s, when slave ships sailed the tropics. But this was 1991 in Miami, Florida. The United States of America.
Where men whose only crime was to seek a better future were being locked in chains.
The five stowaways were removed from the freighter and brought to the Haitian consulate. Arrangements were made to send them home. When immigration officers arrived to take them to the airport, the Haitians cried and struggled and begged to stay. In the scuffle, one managed to escape.
Most of that, too, was captured on television. It was painful to watch.
But if you stayed tuned a little longer, you saw another kind of immigration story, one with a cheerier angle. A young Cuban baseball player named Rene Arocha had defected to the United States, slipping away from his teammates during a stopover in Miami.
Now Arocha was being hailed as a hero, wined and dined and fitted with a new Italian suit and a silk necktie. No manacles on his wrists, no INS agents at his side. Arocha told reporters that he throws a 92 mph fastball. He said he wants to play in the major leagues. One of his former coaches called him "the Dwight Gooden of Cuba."
Back home, Arocha led a more comfortable and privileged life than many of his countrymen. He was not a political activist, just a ballplayer with a good right arm. He didn't leave Cuba to escape persecution, but to seek fortune. He said lots of other players would love to do the same thing.
And why not? In America, a 92 mph fastball is worth millions of dollars. A Wheaties commercial can't be far behind.
That Arocha will be allowed to stay is a foregone conclusion. INS looks favorably on sports celebrities. It matters little that he isn't a true political refugee; neither was Ivan Lendl or Martina Navratilova.
Destitute Haiti, not having an abundance of tennis courts or baseball diamonds, doesn't produce many tennis pros or big-league pitchers. But it is a place that, like Cuba, produces many brave dreamers.
To favor some over others is more than an injustice. It shames this country, and all of us whose ancestors made the same journey.
Racism adds to the pain of repatriations
February 2, 1992
The cutters are on the way, carrying hundreds of heartbroken souls to a place where mad-dog soldiers go on murder sprees.
Our own government admits as much. The U.S. ambassador to Haiti was briefly recalled in protest of bloody thuggery against a political candidate. Last week, for the first time, diplomats mentioned military intervention as a possible option.
Yet the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, says the Haitians can be "repatriated," a sterile euphemism for what's really happening: They're being returned to the bowels of hell.
Many Floridians, though saddened, also feel a secret sense of relief. It's not because they're coldhearted xenophobes—they're not. They are simply weary and worried.
Miami has absorbed more immigrants, in a shorter time, than any city in recent history. The resources here are stretched dangerously beyond their limits. Schools are jammed. T
he county hospital is overwhelmed. The jails are overflowing. Decent, affordable housing is a fiction.
From a practical view, it's insane to accept thousands more refugees when we can't care for those who are already here. From a moral view, though, it's hard to defend slamming the door.
U.S. immigration laws are disgracefully riddled with double standards. If everyone were treated the same, we wouldn't have the depressing spectacle now unfolding in the Caribbean.
The Haitians' major disadvantage is being Haitian. If they were Mexicans, we'd invite them to pick lettuce in California. If they were Nicaraguans, we'd let them wait here until we're sure Managua is running a democracy. And if they were Cubans, they'd be welcomed the moment they were plucked from the sea.
For years, the INS defended itself with a standard line: Most Haitians trying to enter the United States were fleeing poverty, not political persecution. This made them deportable.
New events have turned U.S. policy inside out. Today Haiti is wracked by bloody turmoil, and Cuba's economy is rotting. Florida is receiving political refugees from Port-au-Prince and economic refugees from Havana. Language is the main difference between them.
You cannot separate tyranny from the despair it produces, whether the tyrant is named Duvalier or Castro. Like Cubans, Haitians are victims of generations of political oppression. It isn't fair for the law to treat them differently, but it does.
Think of the outcry if the Coast Guard began hauling Cuban rafters back to Havana, or shipped them to a sweltering barbed-wire camp! Every politician in South Florida would scream bloody murder.
Haitian refugees have few such powerful supporters. Sen. Connie Mack has spoken most strongly for their cause—but a sad cause it is, because there's no painless, or shameless, solution.
It would be folly to throw open our borders to all who are poor and hungry, or who suffer under a harsh, neglectful regime. We'd be swamped. Given a choice, half the hemisphere would pack up and move to Miami in a heartbeat.
But if we're firm about restricting immigration, then we also must be fair. Racist policies add to the pain of those we shut out, and to the misery of waiting relatives.
Today, U.S. strategy is to gild the double standards and set a stern example that will scare potential refugees. The sight of overcrowded American cutters pulling into Port-au-Prince harbor might deter future voyagers, but not for long. Dreams die hard on the coast of Haiti.
In a dozen tiny inlets, old boats are being patched, sails stitched, provisions hoarded. Men gather with nervous families. A captain arrives, and money changes hands—someone's life savings.Then the journey to Florida begins.
Those who fail the first time will surely try again.
Any sane person would.
Keep goodwill afloat at sea: Sink INS piracy
October 24, 1993
The newest pirate of the high seas doesn't even have a cannon.
It's the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which is extracting heavy booty from ships that rescue refugees at sea. Blackbeard himself would be envious.
Last week, crew members aboard the cruise liner Royal Majesty, sailing between Miami arid Cozumel, Mexico, spotted a flare in the night sky. Using searchlights, Capt. Petro Maratos found a raft carrying eight Cuban refugees.
The men had been at sea for five days. Some were dehydrated and hallucinating. The Royal Majesty picked them up and took them to Key West.
For its act of kindness, the cruise ship now faces a $24,000 fine. That's $3,000 per rafter. According to INS policy, anybody who brings undocumented immigrants ashore is subject to monetary penalties.
For the Royal Majesty, it was the third time in two weeks that it had picked up Cuban refugees near the Florida coast. The first groups totaled 11 persons (including a young child), and the passenger liner was rewarded with a fine of $33,000.
The heavy penalties are meant to discourage alien smugglers, not humanitarians. But the practical effect of the INS action against the Royal Majesty is to deter all private American vessels from rushing to the aid of immigrants who face possible death on the water from starvation, sunstroke or drowning.
Whatever one's feelings about this country's screwed-up immigration rules, few would argue that a boat captain should ignore anyone's desperate cry for help, including refugees. Yet that's what is happening. Many rafters have reported that they were spotted—and passed—by several commercial and private vessels before finally being picked up.
It's not surprising, given the harshness of the INS fines. Maybe the cruise companies can afford a few thousand dollars here and there, but many shipowners can't.
Ironically, the oldest of maritime laws require sea captains to assist those in danger or distress. The INS seems to be encouraging just the opposite. It's nuts, like something from a Joseph Heller novel.
The awful consequence is that innocents will probably perish, if they haven't already, because some skippers are afraid to do the right thing. How anyone can turn his back on a child in a drifting raft or a wallowing old sailboat is almost beyond comprehension, but it happens.
The case of the Royal Majesty has its own sour irony. For years the cruise lines have been under fire for surreptitiously dumping garbage in the ocean, but the feds have seldom cracked down with the tough fines provided by law. Now comes a cruise ship captain who nobly attempts to save a few lives—and the government instantly hammers him for $57,000. Some message.
Although INS fines can be appealed, many boat owners don't have the time, patience or money to fight the bureaucracy. It seems a simpler matter—and one of basic human compassion—for the Clinton administration to revise immigration policy to allow rescues at sea, without fear of penalty for the rescuer.
A $3,000-a-head fine is certainly justified for alien smugglers who prey on Cubans, Haitians and other poor immigrants. The trade in human cargo is lucrative and sometimes brutal in Florida waters, and we need strict laws.
But it's indecent to punish honest captains and shipowners for undertaking legitimate rescue missions, often at considerable risk and expense. When a man is sick or parched or delirious from the sun, when he's in a sinking raft surrounded by sharks, there's only one thing to do.
You save him. You don't ask to see a visa.
Alpha 66 threats: New theatrics by inept militants
February 27, 1994
"Those who dare ignore our new appeal will tremble with fear at the violence of our actions."
That ominous little valentine was mailed from Alpha 66, the militant anti-Castro group, to an organization that ships humanitarian supplies to Cuba.
Alpha 66 doesn't want food and medicine sent to the island. The letter was a warning. The FBI says it's investigating.
Nothing will come of it. Nothing ever does. Few, least of all Fidel Castro, "tremble with fear" at the mention of Alpha 66. The group is good at threats, but not so good at actual terrorism.
Sincerity isn't the issue; competence is. Alpha 66 is famous for botching missions. If Barney Fife were a freedom fighter, this is the bunch he would join.
On Feb. 6, several Alpha commandos found themselves adrift in an 18-foot outboard off Miami. The boat carried an impressive cache: shotguns, AK-47s, pistols, a .50-caliber machine gun and 25,000 rounds of ammunition.
Everything one would need for a seagoing assault on Cuba—except a boat mechanic.
In a now-familiar scenario, the disabled vessel was towed to port by bemused Coast Guardsmen, who took away the group's weapons. Alpha 66 later provided the press with differing versions of the "mission," all heroic.
Who knows what they were really doing. The notion of loading an arsenal on a puny 18-footer and heading for Cuba is almost too absurd to be believed. Doing it on a Sunday, when the waters off Key Biscayne are full of innocent boaters, is just plain reckless.
Granted, it's tough to maintain credibility after decades of paramilitary actions that could charitably be described as ineffective. Remember the mock invasion of Elliott
Key, when armed Alpha 66-ers wound up captured by park rangers?
Episodes like that don't help the cause. The urge to vindicate one's self with new dramatics must be tempting. Plans abound, but the execution remains flawed.
Thirteen months ago, the Coast Guard grabbed a load of arms, including grenade launchers, from an Alpha 66 boat off Cuba. Last May, Customs agents followed another craft with engine trouble to a marina in the Middle Keys, where they confiscated grenades, pipe bombs and heavy weapons.
Perhaps the group needs to invest less on weaponry, and more on boat maintenance.
Another weak spot is public relations. After the embarrassing bust in May, Alpha leaders declared that the boat had been on a "military mission" against targets in Cuba. That would be a major violation of U.S. law.
So, at trial, the story changed from one of patriotic bravery to one of ignorance. Lawyers for the commandos said their clients had no clue how the guns and explosives got stowed aboard their fishing boat. A Key West jury believed them.
Confusion also occurred last fall, after Alpha 66 warned that it would begin taking violent action against foreign tourists in Cuba.
The U.S. State Department condemned the manifesto and threatened federal prosecution. Alpha leaders asserted that attacks against visitors in Havana would be carried out not by Alpha's Miami wing, but by secret sympathizers on the island. As if that made it all right.
That the FBI tolerates such silliness proves that it doesn't take the group too seriously. But suppose a steering cable breaks on an explosive-laden Alpha 66 vessel, sending it crashing into innocent boaters in Government Cut. Given Alpha's checkered history, the scenario is not so farfetched.
The feds should either prosecute these guys, or buy them brand new Evinrudes.
