24733: Hermantin (News) Haitian rights activist urges student action

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leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitian rights activist urges student action
Leadership roles, immigration reform topics at conference
By Ushma Patel
Staff Writer
April 10, 2005

Boca Raton · Marleine Bastien challenged Haitian students on Saturday to 
answer unjust immigration practices with action.

"What I hope will happen is after I speak you'll be so motivated, so 
outraged, so angry, that you'll decide to do something about it right now," 
she said.

Bastien, an immigration advocate and director of Haitian Women of Miami, was 
speaking to students at the eighth annual Haitian Student Conference, hosted 
by Florida Atlantic University's Haitian student club, Konbit Kreyol.

About 500 students from across Florida and as far way as Boston came for the 
event. They participated in a cultural show Friday and workshops and a 
banquet featuring Illinois state Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Haitian-American 
Democrat, on Saturday. The three-day conference concludes today with a party 
at the beach at Spanish River Park.

The conference theme was "Rise of the Phoenix: 500 years of hardship; a new 
Haiti on the Rise." Just as the mythical phoenix rose from its own ashes, so 
will Haiti, said Swanellie Paulin, the conference coordinator.

"We want to see Haiti rise as a new country," Paulin said. "[The students] 
have to leave with the thought of being a leader, going back home to be a 
leader."

Saturday workshops were on voodoo, Haiti's public health woes, political and 
economic causes of turmoil in Haiti and Haiti's history.

In Bastien's immigration workshop, she told students the history of 
immigration laws in the United States, starting with Chinese exclusion laws 
in the 1880s and ending with the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 
1998, which she helped pass.

"We organized a group of 1,000 people to go to Washington on March 23, 
1998," to advocate for the bill, she said. "[The law] benefited 50,000 
Haitians, but many Haitians were left out because of their manner of entry."

The bill excluded people who arrived by aircraft with fake documents, and as 
many as 5,000 people could be deported, she said. Last year, she worked with 
U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, on a "fix-it" bill that would expand the 
law, but it died and should be reintroduced, she said.

Haitians also should qualify for temporary protected status, which allows 
undocumented immigrants to gain work permits and avoid deportation to 
nations struggling with natural disasters and political violence, she said.

"If any country in the world qualifies, Haiti qualifies," Bastien said. 
"We've had political hurricanes and natural hurricanes. If we can bring this 
to a national consciousness, if we can bring it to young students like you, 
we feel like we may have a chance."

The lecture was the reason Ketia Policap, 24, a senior from the University 
of Central Florida, came to the conference.

"Politics and immigration is my thing because so many of my family members 
are affected," she said. "My mom came in 1980 when she was three months 
pregnant with me ... and was given asylum."

Varnie Elyzé-Vital, 34, a French major at Montclair State University in New 
Jersey, was blown away by Bastien.

"I vow to do an internship with her," she said. "We're going to spread the 
word."

Ushma Patel can be reached

at upatel@sun-sentinel.com

or 561-243-6621.


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