24576: Hermantin (news) Haitian teen can apply for legal residency

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Posted on Sat, Mar. 26, 2005


IMMIGRATION
Haitian teen can apply for legal residency
After being held for months in immigration custody, a Haitian teenager 
seeking political asylum has learned he can apply for permanent legal 
residency.
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com

Ernesto Joseph, a homeless Haitian orphan whose arduous fight to remain in 
the United States prompted a national outcry, could soon become a permanent 
resident -- ending his two-and-a-half year battle with U.S. immigration 
authorities.

The Administrative Appeals Office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration 
Services in Washington, D.C., has ruled that Joseph is eligible to apply for 
permanent legal status as a juvenile. The decision reverses an earlier 
ruling by the Miami district office, which had blocked Joseph's petition on 
the grounds that he was an adult, not a minor as he claimed.

Though this is the last formal step in applying for residency, the 
processing takes months. To remain eligible for permanent residency, Joseph, 
who is living with a foster family, must have his green card in hand before 
he turns 18 on July 16.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, green card applications and other immigration 
documents often take a year to consider because of increased background 
checks.

Still, Joseph, who arrived in Miami along with 213 other Haitian migrants on 
Oct. 29, 2002, when their boat ran aground near Key Biscayne, remains 
hopeful.

''I feel really good,'' said Joseph, who is learning English and enjoys 
watching Tom and Jerry cartoons. ``I am very happy. Before I had trouble 
sleeping.''

In a letter to U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, last month, Joseph 
wrote: ``I am troubled about my case. I want everything to be O.K. But it is 
not. . . . It broke my heart. I need your help.''

The cry for help was not lost on Meek. He has championed Joseph's case since 
an immigration appeals judge overruled a decision to grant Joseph political 
asylum in August 2003 on the grounds that -- because he is a homeless teen 
-- he could be killed or jailed if returned to Haiti.

''This young man has a real story to tell. Maybe going through the 
experience he has gone through, he can be a living example of someone trying 
to escape political persecution in Haiti,'' Meek said. ``There are so many 
like him who have been returned back to Haiti, some have never been heard 
from again.''

While attorneys are racing against time, Cheryl Little, executive director 
of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, said she is hopeful immigration 
authorities will assist in expediting the process.

''It's time he has some closure, and is able to move forward with his life. 
He's been in legal limbo,'' Little said. ``It practically takes an act of 
Congress to get these children released, this case is evident of that.''

Shortly after his arrival in the United States, Joseph was held in detention 
for months and became the focus of an extensive investigation launched by 
immigration authorities. Their aim: to disprove attorneys' claims that 
Joseph was a minor.

Immigration authorities sent investigators to Haiti in search of his 
parents' grave and subjected the teen to dental and wrist X-rays to 
determine his age. They also demanded authentic birth certificates, which 
showed he was born July 16, 1987.

Ultimately, the appeals office said ``there is insufficient evidence in the 
record to conclude that the birth certificate evidence is inaccurate or 
otherwise unreliable.

``The evidence actually supports the petitioner's claim to a great degree.''