Florida detention center readied for fleeing Haitians

Bracing for a possible surge of Haitian refugees fleeing their earthquake-ravaged country, U.S. officials are taking steps to prepare for their arrival -- but some of their actions are raising concerns among immigrants' rights advocates.

The Department of Homeland Security has plans to move more than 400 detainees from Krome detention center (pictured right) west of Miami to make room for any influx of people from Haiti, the Miami Herald reports. Known formally as the Krome Service Processing Center, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility located on the edge of the Everglades holds up to 500 people waiting to learn their immigration status or to be deported. Some 100 of the detainees who were transferred went to the Monroe County jail in the Florida Keys, a move that a local newspaper described as a possible "boon for Monroe County coffers."

But some are questioning the decision to move those already at Krome. Cheryl Little, director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami, expressed concern for how the transfers would affect the detainees' legal representation. Her nonprofit organization provides legal assistance to immigrants of all nationalities.

The plan to ready Krome for fleeing earthquake survivors came on the heels of last week's news that the Obama administration was granting Temporary Protected Status to Haitians already living in the U.S. when the earthquake struck on Jan. 12. They join the other TPS-covered immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Somalia and Sudan.

The special status gives undocumented Haitians an 18-month reprieve from deportation. It will also allow them to work legally in the U.S., earning money that will likely prove an important source of support for their devastated homeland. Even before the earthquake struck, remittances from Haitians living abroad accounted for more than a quarter of the country's gross domestic product.

Administration officials say they expect as many as 200,000 Haitians will apply for TPS, including nearly 68,000 in South Florida alone. They would join an already-thriving Haitian-American community in Florida, the state with the greatest number of Haitian-born residents -- more than 182,000 according to the last Census count.


Immigrants rights groups including Little's have been asking the U.S. to grant TPS to Haitians since 2008, when four major hurricanes devastated the country, killing some 800 people. That disaster came four years after massive flooding left some 5,000 Haitians dead or missing.

The Bush administration denied the request for TPS, and the U.S. continued deporting Haitians under Obama, though focusing more on those with criminal records. Last year, 221 noncriminal Haitians were deported to Haiti, down from 1,226 the previous year, according to ICE statistics. Meanwhile, deportations of Haitians with criminal records totaled 466 in 2009, compared to 428 in 2008.

But in announcing the Obama administration's decision to grant TPS status after the earthquake, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano took pains to make clear that the U.S. was not welcoming Haitians with open arms. She warned Haitians that "attempting to leave Haiti now will only bring more hardship to the Haitian people and nation." DHS and the State Department are making special allowances for orphaned children who are being adopted or considered for adoption by U.S. citizens, however.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Air Force cargo plane equipped with radio transmitters has been flying over Haiti daily since the disaster, broadcasting a recorded message from Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, according to the New York Times:

"Listen, don't rush on boats to leave the country," Mr. Joseph says in Creole, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon. "If you do that, we'll all have even worse problems. Because, I'll be honest with you: If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that's not at all the case. And they will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from."

And Krome isn't the only facility being looking at for housing Haitian refugees: Speaking about the earthquake response last week, State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley said the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba is "going to be an enormously valuable asset as we go through this."

Notorious as the scene of human rights abuses of prisoners captured by the U.S. in the Afghanistan war, Guantanamo was also the point that more than 30,000 Haitian refugees passed through in 1991 following the military coup overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president.

Guantanamo houses the Migrant Operations Center for immigrants caught at sea without proper U.S. documents. That facility is operated under contract with DHS by the Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO Group, one of the world's largest private prison companies. The GEO Group has experienced serious problems at a detention facility it runs in Pecos, Texas -- among them riots, suicides and deaths from inadequate health care.

(Photo of Krome detention center from the DHS website.)