25831: Hermantin(News)Jailed man set for exile to land he's never seen (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Plam Beach Post

Jailed man set for exile to land he's never seen
By Kathleen Chapman

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, July 25, 2005

Steven Altidor has lived in West Palm Beach since he was 4 or 5 years old. He 
can't remember any other home.

But he was not born in the United States, so he was always a guest in the eyes 
of the law.

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At 18, Altidor beat a man and stole his wallet, then compounded his problems by 
mouthing off to a police officer and getting caught with a marijuana cigarette.

Today, at age 24, he faces deportation to a place he has seen only on a map.

Though Altidor was born in the Bahamas, that country does not accept him as a 
citizen. The United States will send him instead to Haiti, the country his 
father fled more than four decades ago.

Altidor does not have any friends or family in Haiti, a place the State 
Department warns is now too dangerous for Americans. He isn't fluent in Creole.

His parents worry about what will happen to him in a Haitian jail, where 
inmates don't always have clean water or medical care and go without food if 
the guards are hungry. They fear that he will be killed by political gangs who 
mistake his tattoos for the marks of rival groups, or targeted by kidnappers 
who believe he has money because he looks and sounds American.

Wilner Altidor believes his son should be punished for his crimes, even 
deported to the Bahamas if it would take him. But Haiti, he fears, could be a 
death sentence.

Steven's mother, Felicita, hasn't been eating, Wilner Altidor said. She cries 
all the time.

"She knows they are going to kill him," he said.

Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 
said she cannot comment on ongoing litigation. A judge will decide Altidor's 
case after a hearing today.

Immigration attorneys say Altidor's case is not uncommon in South Florida. Many 
people of Haitian descent come through the Bahamas, which changed its laws in 
1973 to help prevent an influx of Haitian immigrants.

Everyone born after that date has to have at least one Bahamian parent to be 
born a citizen. Both of Altidor's parents are from Haiti, so he does not 
qualify.

Haiti's Interim prime minister, Gerard Latortue, has complained about the 
United States sending criminals to an already unstable country. A United 
Nations peacekeeping force has not been able to stop political gangs that are 
terrorizing the capital, Port-au-Prince. Violence seems to be escalating in 
advance of elections scheduled for the fall.

Last month, the United States evacuated most of the staff at its embassy and 
called home the Peace Corps.

Latortue blames some of the problems on criminals who were not born in Haiti or 
who left as small children. His government automatically jails every criminal 
deportee, even those who have finished their sentences.

American leaders have objected to the Haitian practice of jailing deportees who 
have served their time, saying it violates human-rights agreements. And, before 
a landmark case in 2002, immigration attorneys said, they were often able to 
stop the deportation of criminals to Haiti on the grounds that their treatment 
in Haitian jails would amount to state-sanctioned torture.

But a case before the Board of Immigration Appeals that year set a precedent. 
Though the United States acknowledges that conditions in Haitian jails are 
often deplorable, the appeals court ruled that they did not rise to the level 
of torture.

In order to keep Altidor in the United States, his attorney, Jessica Zagier of 
the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, has to convince a judge that he is more 
likely than not to be persecuted in Haiti. She argues that Altidor's gold tooth 
and tattoos will set him apart from Haitian citizens and lead soldiers or 
rivals to mistake him for a member of a political gang.

Advocacy center attorney Jack Wallace, who has represented many Bahamians 
deported to Haiti, said some have told horror stories about "being left in a 
foreign land, having nowhere to turn and nowhere to go."

Some reported that they went as long as two weeks without food, he said.

Judges still seem to be stopping deportations of felons who are sick, mentally 
ill, or like Altidor, have no relatives to help win their release from jail, 
Wallace said.

Wilner Altidor said he has no family left Haiti. He left in 1961 when he was 
16, and never wanted to go back. His father, who had a job in the government, 
was murdered there, he said.

"It is a bad place."

Ordained as a minister in the Bahamas, he works at a West Palm Beach discount 
store.

Wilner Altidor said he was proud to raise his sons as Americans. When people 
tried to speak to Steven in Creole as a little boy, he answered them in perfect 
English, he said.

Steven Altidor spoke without a trace of an accent in an immigration hearing 
July 18. He doesn't really know much about Haiti.

He started getting in trouble when he joined a local gang called the Haitian 
Mafia. Kids at Palm Beach Lakes High picked on people and stereotyped them, he 
said, so he wanted protection. The gang wasn't as tough as it pretended, he 
testified. Mostly, he said, the members just hung out.

When he was about 15, he got a tattoo that says "Thug" on his arm and another 
on his stomach that says "Haitian Assassin." He told the immigration judge the 
tattoos were meant to "make me look badder than I really was."

But Altidor did get arrested several times. In 1999, he was charged with simple 
battery when he slapped a girl he knew. He was convicted of robbery when he and 
a friend beat a man for his wallet. A few months later, he was walking down the 
street holding a joint when he bumped into a police officer. And he was charged 
with unlawful assembly when he refused to leave a club after ordered by police.

His probation officer blamed him for his acts of "stupidity," according to 
court records, and extended his probation. A judge sentenced him to a drug 
treatment program, and incarcerated him when he refused to continue.

Up to that point, Altidor's crimes — all misdemeanors except the robbery — 
would not have reached the threshold for deportation, Zagier said. But when he 
quit drug treatment, he added to his jail time and brought the total to more 
than a year.

Noncitizens who spend at least a year in prison are considered "aggravated 
felons" under the law and are eligible for deportation.

For nine months, Altidor has been waiting in a Bradenton detention center. 
Zagier said that he has already glimpsed the danger that he could meet in an 
explosive political situation he doesn't fully understand.

Another detainee in Bradenton asked him about one tattoo that says "1804" — the 
year Haiti won its independence from France. The man mistook it for the Group 
18, a political coalition that demanded the resignation of former President 
Jean Bertrand Aristide.

Zagier fears that the same will happen in Haiti. A violent political opponent 
will see the tattoo, and mistake him for a rival. And Steven Altidor won't be 
able to explain.