Speech #1050207802

Cambodians. Poles. Chinese. and many other refugees will not be sent back to unstable or repressive regimes. Last year. we adopted legislation to protect Nicaraguans and Cubans. But Haitians were unfairly excluded from that bill. The time has come for Congress to end the bigotry. We must remedy this flagrant omission and add Haitians to the list of deserving refugees. By approving the Haitian Refugee Fairness Immigration Act. we can finally bring to an end the shameful decades of unjust treatment of Haitians. As the decisions of federal judges over the past two decades make clear. Haitans are treated with blatant discrimination under our immigration laws. Throughout the 1980s. less than 2 percent of Haitians fleeing the atrocities committed by the Duvalier regimes were granted asylum. Yet. other refugee groups had approval rates as high as 75 percent. Haitian asylum seekers were detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. but asylum seekers from other countries were routinely released while their asylum applications were processed. Until recently. Haitians have been the only group intercepted on the high seas and forcibly returned to their home country. without even the opportunity to seek asylum. We welcomed boat people from Cuba. Vietnam and other parts of the world. But for years. we picked up Haitians on the high seas and sent them back to Haiti. in violation of international refugee laws. This Congress has the opportunity to right the shameful wrongs that Haitian refugees have suffered. We have before us a bill that offers full protection of our laws to these victims of persecution in their fight for democracy. The call for democracy is being heard around the world. and Americas voice has always been the loudest.