Posted on Thu, Nov. 21, 2002

CORALIE CARLSON Associated Press

MIAMI - The Rev. Al Sharpton led more than 200 protesters across downtown Thursday to call for the release of Haitian migrants who remain in federal detention since wading ashore nearly a month ago.

Sharpton and the crowd chanted "No Justice, No Peace," as they carried signs and marched across downtown to the Torch of Freedom on Biscayne Bay.

At the rally, Sharpton called for a change in federal policy that orders all new illegal migrants be detained until they are deported or, rarely, granted asylum.

"It is a very distressing thing to see people herded up and treated in a way that we do not treat others coming to the U.S.," Sharpton said.

Before the rally, Sharpton met with about 40 of the more than 200 Haitians detained at Krome Detention Center in southwest Miami-Dade County and told them they had wide public support.

"I encouraged them first to know there are thousands upon thousands in Florida and millions around the country that are with them," Sharpton said.

The Bush administration had been holding all illegal Haitian aliens while releasing other nationalities into the community pending deportation to deter a feared mass migration from the hemisphere's poorest nation.

That policy was changed this month to detain all non-Cubans, who are covered by a unique 1966 federal law guaranteeing their release if they reach U.S. shores.

Sharpton encouraged more Cuban-Americans to join the fight for Haitian refugees, saying it is wrong to have different standards.

"Should we tell the world, if we don't like who's in charge of your country, you can come?" he asked. "That seems like a real kind of jaded foreign policy."

About 220 Haitian migrants were detained Oct. 29, when their 50-foot wooden freighter ran aground along Rickenbacker Causeway southeast of downtown Miami. Live television newscasts showed the dramatic event nationwide.

Most of those have been held at Krome, on the edge of the Everglades, since the landing as Haitian-American activists push for their release into the community.

"What we're trying to do is keep the pressure on until things change for the Haitians," said Leslie Thomas, executive director of New York-based Caribbean American Network.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2002

Answers

Send Sharpton back with them. they do not have 'wide' support unless he is referring to people with large waists.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002

I don't know who this Sharpton is, but barefoot's statement most clearly represents the almost zero concern people have for the Haitians.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002

sharpton, the dullard, is a rep or something from Broward county, the county north of Dade where Miami is [hence the new name Miami-Dade].

He is like jesse jackson sort of.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002

Al Sharpton is a loud-mouthed demagogue from NYC and, like Jackson, jumps on every issue he can to forward his eventual bid for the presidency.

It's not a bias against Haitains that influences me, it's a bias against ANY illegal alien. I know Miami a bit, having visited it before the Marielito deluge and then a number of years later. The difference was startling. Unfettered illegal immigrration has turned the place into a third-world country in some areas, worse than anything you see in economically-deprived areas of other cities. The Hungarian, who lived in Miami for a number of years, also laments the deterioration of the city and the surge in drug smuggling, often involving illegal aliens. Finally, there's Esther, the lady from Santa Domingo, a legal immigrant who helps me keep my house from the attention of the Health Department. When she first came she apologized for her poor English, saying she had been in the States for nearly 30 years but "I live in Miami and nobody speak English down there."

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002

could have sworn i read that sharpton had some connection with Broward county. It was in an article relating to the haitian wash up, IIRC.

apparently I don't recall correctly. LOL

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002