30336: Hermantin(News)Haiti migrants: If only they had a golden arm (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

on Sun, Apr. 08, 2007

Haiti migrants: If only they had a golden arm
By CARL HIAASEN
US. immigration policy is a sporting proposition.

Some boat people get locked up. Some boat people get to play ball.

Jean-Ferdinand Monestime, who landed on Hallandale Beach on March 28, is in 
government custody awaiting an asylum hearing that will likely result in his 
deportation.

Francisely Bueno, who landed on Big Pine Key in August 2004, is pitching for 
the Atlanta Braves' AA farm team in Pearl, Miss. The lefty is here to stay.

Monestime arrived on a dilapidated sailboat after weeks at sea with 100 other 
weary and hungry Haitians, including 13 children and teenagers. Bueno arrived 
from Cuba on a speedboat with four other ballplayers, 13 other migrants and a 
smuggler at the helm.

Monestime and Bueno came to America for the same reason: to find a good job.

In order to stay, Monestime must prove to a judge that he faces political 
persecution if he returns to Haiti. Bueno didn't spend a day behind bars, and 
he didn't have to prove anything.

That's because the United States awards political asylum to almost all Cubans 
who reach the shores of Florida. Those who are intercepted at sea are usually 
returned to the island.

Bueno and his friends didn't reach the Keys the first time they tried. The 
speedboat was stopped by the Coast Guard, the athletes shipped home. A month 
later they launched again and made it.

No other boat people are permitted to stay here simply because they reach dry 
land. Cubans are treated differently because politicians of both parties covet 
the exile vote in South Florida.

There are many other dictators in the world besides Fidel Castro, yet our 
government doesn't open its arms to all who have fled those countries in search 
of freedom.

The ''wet foot, dry foot'' rule is a farce. Illogical, unfair and racist in 
practice, it's also been a boon to people-smugglers with fast boats, and to 
other profiteers.

Baseball contracts

Last week, in a Key West courtroom, sports agent Gustavo Dominguez was on trial 
for allegedly masterminding the smuggling voyage that brought Bueno and the 
other ballplayers to Florida.

Prosecutors said Dominguez hired a convicted drug trafficker to help him plan 
and execute the trip. Once the players landed safely in the Keys, they were 
driven to California. There, according to the government, Dominguez got 
apartments for the men and began lining up professional baseball contracts.

Defense attorneys for the sports agent said he's innocent. They said he was 
acting out of compassion, not greed.

Unfortunately for Jean-Ferdinand Monestime, he can't throw a 95 mph fastball, 
or hit a slider out of the park. No American rich guys sent a go-fast to whisk 
him to Florida in the dark of night.

Monestime paid for his own passage, boarded the overcrowded sailboat and 
endured a rough, treacherous crossing that has claimed hundreds -- probably 
thousands -- of Haitian lives during the past three decades.

Those who've made it to U.S. shores have mixed luck, depending on the judge 
reviewing their case. Some have been allowed to stay in the United States, but 
many, many more have been deported.

Haiti isn't ruled by a dictatorship; it has a shaky government crippled by 
poverty, corruption and chaos. Despite the presence of U.N. troops, roving 
armed gangs terrorize the cities; in the countryside, the deadly threats are 
disease and hunger.

There is no place in the hemisphere more wretched or dangerous, and it's 
perfectly understandable why so many Haitians set out for Florida. They are not 
alone in this dream.

The U.S. Census Bureau says that 409,426 immigrants settled in Miami-Dade, 
Broward and Palm Beach counties between April 2000 and July 2006. That means 
that nine out of every 10 newcomers were from other countries, an astonishing 
statistic.

South Florida needs more people like the Sahara needs more sand, but our 
economy obviously has become reliant on foreign-born labor. No less plain is 
the fact that many builders, farmers and company owners will never turn down an 
immigrant work force.

Consequently, the government has no hope whatsoever of controlling the borders. 
The least we should demand, though, is an immigration policy that's humane, 
fair and free of favoritism.

Unaccountably, the Department of Homeland Security won't give Temporary 
Protected Status to Haitians awaiting deportation hearings. The TPS program was 
created specifically to provide haven for undocumented migrants who would face 
perilous conditions if sent home.

Haiti is such a violent place that the State Department advises Americans not 
to travel there, yet somehow it's all right to send Haitians back into the 
bloody chaos.

A shot at big leagues

Church leaders and Cuban-American organizations have called on the government 
to grant temporary status to Jean-Ferdinand Monestime and the 100 others who 
scrambled ashore last month in Hallandale Beach, but all the migrants remain in 
detention. [See article by Archbishop Favalora.]

Meanwhile, it's springtime, and in America that means baseball. Francisely 
Bueno will be taking the mound for the Mississippi Braves as a free man, hoping 
for a shot at the big leagues.

He's a very lucky young fellow.

Lucky to have a golden arm.

Luckier still not to have been born in Haiti.

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