Marcia Buri
Professor: Kitana Ananda
ENG 103.0905
The document “Council of the city of New York” is a report of the legal services Division, that was written in april 20,1982, by council members. The subject of this document was the immigration and naturalization of Haitians that had traveled to United states as refugees and were held in detention centers. The second document “Association of Haitian Workers, January 2nd Coalition for the Defense of Haitian Refugees statement ” is also by the council of the city of new york, this document was written in march 1982. This document’s purpose was to make people from america understand that the U.S government support to a corrupt government Jean Claude Duvalier in haiti was the reason for so many haitians to seek for refuge in the United States.
The documents “” The Council of the City of New York, Report of Legal Services Division and “Association of Haitian Workers, January 2nd Coalition for the Defense of Haitian Refugees statement”, both documents have in common that both focus on Haitian refugees. In both people are trying to find a way to help haitians who have been detained and are held in detention camps in the U.S. In the first document, around fifty three haitians refugees have been detained at the brooklyn Navy Yard in which those refugees are basically violated of their rights, federal district court judge Robert Carter as a way of helping these haitians ordered their release however they could not be released because there was an appeal pending. There was another way that haitians could be liberated at least till the appeal occurred and this was by getting sponsors, people who at non-profit would take responsability of these people but it all depended on William smith, general attorney to parole this refugees. The second document’s goal was also to help haitians who had been detained in the United states and in puerto rico. Their ways to help this people was by opening americans eyes and making them realize that the government aiding a corrupt government like that haitian government was the reason haitians were fleeing to america, simply because the situation in their country is just way out of hand. Some of the demands in this documents were for haitian refugees to get released from camps and political asylum, an unconditional amnesty for undocumented workers, an end to military help to Duvalier, and for the U.S to stop intervention in El Salvador, Central america and the caribbean. What both documents have different is that in the first document, ‘The council of New York, report of legal services division” focuses more in the haitian refugees that were held in detention centers and those who were being deported to belize,this document describes the actions that were taken to help those refugees to be free. While in the second document “Association of Haitian Workers, January 2nd Coalition for the Defense of Haitian Refugees statement”, this document focuses more making people see the reasons for haitians to be fleeing to america and it states specific demands to help haitians, well not only haitians but undocumented workers as well.
In these two documents i learned about haitian refugees that were fleeing to the united states, looking for protection from the political repression they were suffering in haiti. However as soon as they arrived in the United States instead of having that freedom they were hoping for, they were captured and sent to detention camps and centers either waiting for their cases to be taken to court or just waiting to be deported back to haiti or other places while they were violated of their rights. Another thing i learned is that there were some actions taken in order to help these haitian refugees, and some can be seen as successful while others can be seen as as simple failure.