Miami Herald - Sunday, December 20, 1992
Andres Viglucci, Herald Staff Writer

It is because of his eyes that Jean-Louis is here, in yet another camp encircled by razor wire, eight months after a friend put him on a boat to escape the Haitian soldiers he says were hunting for him.

He got out of Haiti only to land in a U.S. Navy base in Cuba, detained at a camp for refugees who carry the virus believed to cause AIDS.

When an infection flared up in his eyes, he became one of 17 people from the HIV camp in Guantanamo brought to the United States for medical care, and thus one step closer to freedom.

"We were delivered," he said during an interview at Krome. "We thought we were going to die in Guantanamo."

But now that it has brought him here, the government seems unsure of what to do with Jean-Louis. Like at least four of the others brought stateside for treatment, he remains in detention, his prospects for release uncertain, even though the government itself says he has a strong case for political asylum.

(Jean-Louis is a pseudonym to protect his medical confidentiality. He doesn't want his family to know he has the HIV virus.)

His story represents one more twist in the complicated case of the Guantanamo Haitians, 276 of whom remain consigned to what critics have called the world's first HIV concentration camp.

The critics contend it also highlights the kind of inconsistent decisions by U.S. immigration authorities that have trapped most of the HIV-positive Haitians in an unprecedented legal twilight zone.

"It's just one more example of Haitians being singled out for discriminatory treatment," said Cheryl Little, an attorney for Rural Legal Services of Florida in Miami who is representing Jean-Louis.

Government officials defend their handling of the refugees, saying they've tried to deal sensitively with a difficult situation.

The crux of the dilemma is this: Immigration officials say the Haitians in Guantanamo have credible cases for political asylum. The government can't send the Haitians home, where they might face persecution. But a rule that bars the entry of people with HIV also prevents them from being brought into the country.

When 10,000 Haitian refugees were brought into the country from Guantanamo to pursue asylum claims earlier this year, Jean-Louis and about 220 other HIV-positive Haitians and their families stayed behind in a rough, dreary makeshift camp in a remote corner of the base. Some have been at the base more than a year.

The HIV camp, created a year ago during a massive flight of Haitians following the ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has prompted lawsuits against the federal government and denunciations from human rights groups.

Last week, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees wrote INS to request the release of Jean-Louis and the two other men at Krome, suggesting that their continued detention could violate international treaties and U.N. guidelines.

U.S. immigration officials have declined to spell out any policy on the refugees, saying they deal with each case individually. That approach has resulted in a jumble of different results:

* 17 people, including children and several pregnant women, have been brought stateside for medical treatment unavailable on the base. But immigration officials denied permission to four others whose condition doctors in Guantanamo said is rapidly deteriorating because of their HIV infection.

* Of the 17, the INS has denied release to at least four: Jean-Louis, the two others at Krome, and a woman who has been in detention in New York since her infant died of AIDS-related pneumonia in a military hospital.

"If they have HIV, the policy has been that we take them back into custody" after they leave the hospital, said Duke Austin, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

But nine women and their children, including some who were born in U.S. military hospitals, have been released under to a private AIDS agency in New Jersey while they pursue their asylum claims.

* One man, Rigaud Melinette, was granted political asylum and freed. He and his lawyer say immigration officials never even brought up the subject of HIV infection.

The refugees' fate may be resolved when President-elect Bill Clinton, who has promised to end the HIV ban, takes office. Clinton also would have authority to let the refugees in as a humanitarian gesture, without lifting the ban.

If he doesn't move quickly, advocates and camp residents warn, there could be trouble in Guantanamo. After a summer of riots, a new camp commander brought widely applauded improvements in living conditions and the treatment of its residents. But refugees remain restive, and some are despondent. Recently two men attempted suicide.

"They were crying for attention," said Army Col. Stephen Kinder, whose assignment as camp commander ended last week. "These are good people. These folks are trusting and waiting for Clinton to do something for them."

Michel Vilsaint, elected president of the camp by the refugees, told reporters during a recent visit to the camp: "We are going to wait until Clinton is sworn in. We feel we can't wait any longer."

Federal officials blame the lawsuits for the refugees' long wait. Because of the legal disputes, the INS has stopped processing the claims of the HIV-positive Haitians in the camp, all of whom have passed at least the first interview for asylum. Most have also passed a more-stringent second interview.

"We haven't been able to process them any further," said Austin, the INS spokesman. "We can move in neither direction with them because of the litigation. We can't even question them."

Advocates for the refugees say the government has only itself to blame. They say the camp would not exist if the Bush administration had not decided last year to give HIV tests to the thousands of Haitians in Guantanamo.

U.S. immigration authorities have never administered HIV tests en masse to such a large group of refugees, including other Haitian refugees. But Austin said the decision was consistent with U.S. policy, which is to test people who apply for asylum in foreign countries.

Administration officials acknowledge that no one thought through the potential consequences of testing the Haitians. Paul Capuccio, an associate deputy attorney general, told The New York Times last week that, in retrospect, the government should have refrained from testing the Haitians.

The ban has been controversial. The Department of Justice successfully fought attempts by Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan to rescind the HIV ban, arguing the country cannot afford the expense of caring for poor immigrants with AIDS.

But advocates for the Haitian refugees note that the government doesn't restrict refugees with cancer or other deadly and costly illnesses.

"They just don't get it," said Harold Koh, a Yale Law School professor who is representing the Guantanamo refugees. "They don't really understand their plight, how unbelievably racist this is.

"Take these little kids in the camp. They could be your kids, my kids. They don't understand what's happening. The people in the camp ask, what did they do wrong? The answer is, they did nothing wrong."

In the camp, vigilant medical care by military doctors has so far succeeded in keeping most people healthy and controlling infections such as tuberculosis from spreading.

"We're able to monitor people well, and we have all active diseases under control," said Navy Dr. Rob Hunter, the clinic's director. "These people are getting good medical care, better than they've had in their lives.

But the doctors worry because many camp residents refuse to take prescribed anti-AIDS medications or submit to blood tests to monitor the progress of the disease. Many refugees simply deny or refuse to believe they carry the AIDS virus, calling it a ruse.

"I don't believe it," said Vilsaint, the camp president. "It's American politics."

Lawyers for the refugees blame the denial on the mistrust sown by the mistreatment inflicted on the refugees before the current administration took over. They also criticize the lack of Creole-speaking medical workers, a lack of culturally sensitive counseling, and initial HIV tests that suffered high error rates.

When camp residents are told the reason they're being held is because of the HIV ban, their response is to ask why then Jean-Louis and the others were allowed to go to the United States.

Meanwhile, at Krome, Jean-Louis still echoes the questions they ask on Guantanamo:

"I would like to know how much more time I'm going to have to spend here. I would like to know when I am going to get out."

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