THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406200160
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940619 LENGTH: KINGSTON, JAMAICA
First among their countrymen to win at least a chance at life in the United States under a new Clinton administration refugee policy, the Haitians endured counseling and questioning sessions on topics ranging from family histories to club memberships.
{REST} Were they ``afflicted with psychopathic personality, sexual deviation?'' one form demanded. Were they ``paupers, professional beggars or vagrants?''
Such questions are standard for foreigners seeking refuge in the United States. They were asked as an assortment of military and civilian clerks, counselors and doctors - among them a contingent from Portsmouth Naval Hospital - led the Haitians up and down ramps, through narrow passageways and across medical wards aboard the Comfort, a gleaming white Navy hospital ship anchored just outside the Kingston harbor.
And what were the ``right'' answers? The ones that got six Haitians passes to America as refugees from their country's military dictators? U.S. immigration officials wouldn't say, suggesting only that the Haitians who passed the screening had convinced interviewers they had a ``well-founded fear'' of reprisals if returned home.
Friday afternoon, after the six lucky refugees had been flown out for more questioning, journalists got a hurried run-through of what for the thousands of Haitian expected here in the coming weeks will be a dizzying introduction to America's bureaucratic culture.
Plucked from the Caribbean on Wednesday in three places, each less than 20 miles off their country's coast, the 35 Haitians hadn't been at sea long enough to suffer the dehydration and other maladies that have stricken hundreds of refugees from their troubled island. U.S. Coast Guard crews picked them up, then destroyed their handmade sailboats as hazards to navigation.
Coast Guard cutters steam at about 15 knots, so it took all night to bring the Haitians the 200 miles to the Comfort. A hatch about halfway up the side of the huge hospital ship - a converted supertanker - was opened around 9 a.m. Thursday, and the migrants were welcomed aboard by U.S. troops and Creole-speaking workers for the International Organization for Migration.
Lt. Pete Mitchell, the ship's public affairs officer, said the tension was palpable as the migrants stepped aboard, clutching plastic bags containing the few possessions they'd brought from Haiti. They were offered food and water and a few, barefoot, were given hospital slippers. The migration agency workers explained some ship's rules - no smoking, no weapons - and the Haitians were led to a room full of computers, there to be introduced to their first military acronym - DMPITS, for ``Deployable Mass Population Identification Tracking System.''
DMPITS is part hospital bracelet, part grocery store scanner - a black wristband with a computer imprint of basic data about the wearer: name, date of birth, family members, residence. It allowed the Americans to track each refugee at any point in the screening process, but it didn't keep them from asking the Haitians to provide some of the same information again and again.
In part to quell suspicions that the screening was a ruse, set up by the administration only to assuage African-American protests over summary repatriations, the United States invited observers from the migration organization and the United Nations.
Representtatives from the International Organization for Migration and the U.N High Commissioner for Refugees were scattered all along the processing trail aboard the Comfort. At several points, they were given time to counsel the Haitians on how to answer the Americans' questions.
Each agency took a lengthy turn with each Haitian after the DMPITS bracelets were issued and before the Haitians were taken - individually or in family groups - into a converted medical ward for crucial questioning about their reasons for fleeing.
Haitians ``don't always think in a linear way,'' said Lorraine Seymour, the migration agency's operations supervisor aboard Comfort. A series of questions that would seem logical to Americans can be confusing to Haitians, she said.
Arthur Nieto, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officer in charge, said his interviewers question the migrants extensively about acts of political repression in Haiti that they claimed to have witnessed. The answers were compared to a databank on such incidents, Nieto said, to help interviewers evaluate their stories.
The interviewers, one at each of 26 work stations seperated by hospital curtains, kept notes and wrote a narrative account of each migrant's claims, Nieto said.
Those whose stories were judged implausible or insufficient to justify admission were invited to provide additional information. The interviewer's recommendation was reviewed by a quality assurance officer who made the final decision.
For most of the Haitians, the process ended there, after roughly 12 hours. Told they'd been rejected, they were taken to temporary quarters aboard the Comfort to await repatriation, probably Monday.
As for the six selected to come to the United States, ``they were very excited, you could see their spirits were lifted,'' said Navy Cmdr. David Barnette, the head of Comfort's 500-member medical contingent.
Lt. Irene McKiel, a nurse from Chesapeake who is among 47 Portsmouth Naval Hospital personnel on the ship, said that after several weeks at sea to prepare, the hospital staff was about as glad to see the Haitians as the Haitians were to be seen.
McKiel worked among nurses and doctors who took extensive medical histories from the six selected for transfer to the U.S., along with blood samples and chest X-rays. The Haitians were tested for the AIDS virus, another requirement for any alien but of special concern for natives of an island where the virus has run rampant; all were negative.
``The people I work with, it's a blast,'' McKiel said of life aboard Comfort. Like many of the doctors and nurses, she is in her first shipboard assignment. The experience has made her a fan of the Marines who provide security for the ship and lead the crew in daily workouts, she said.
The United Nations would prefer that every applicant from Haiti be given refuge, said Barbara Francis, a spokeswoman for the high commissioner. ``This seemed to work,'' she said Friday of the previous day's processing, ``but given large numbers coming in - that will really put the system to the test.''
Those numbers haven't materialized as yet, a surprising development given that Haitians can hear Voice of America broadcasts detailing the new screening policy.
To cope with an anticipated flood of refugees, the government on Saturday announced an agreement with the government of the Turks and Caicos Islands to build a center for processing of up to 2,500 refugees at a time on Grand Turk Island. It is to be complete by the end of July and could supplement or replace the Comfort.
{KEYWORDS} HAITI REFUGEES U.S. NAVY
by CNB