Asylum: Will It Be Any Easier Afloat?

The rules are simple in theory: anyone with a well-founded fear of persecution is entitled to political asylum in the U.S. Someone who is desperate to find a job and feed a family is not. Until now, Bill Clinton has avoided trying to tell them apart and simply repatriated all Haitian boat people to Port-au-Prince. His new plan to process their claims at sea and grant refuge to the deserving quieted domestic criticism but may not do the job. Here's how it would work:

SHIPBOARD PROCESSING. When Washington had officials do initial screening of Haitians on Coast Guard cutters from September 1981 to mid-1991, only 24 of the 24,589 interviewed were found to have a credible enough claim of persecution to enter the U.S. to pursue their case. Clinton has ordered officials to conduct full interviews aboard larger chartered vessels. They would decide on the spot, unhampered by lawyers or the lengthy due process that often prolongs cases in the U.S. for years, who deserves refugee status. Steven Forrester, a lawyer with Miami's Haitian Refugee Center, questions the process: "Terrified refugees who fear they'll be shipped back immediately aren't going to open up."

Most observers agree, however, that anything would be an improvement over the current asylum-application system, under which prospective refugees must apply at three processing centers in Haiti. Merely doing so can be considered a dangerously disloyal act by the regime, and only 3,000 of 55,694 applicants over two years have gained asylum.

PERSONNEL. The boat people will probably be interviewed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, already burdened with a backlog of 400,000 refugee applications. Immigration officials in Haiti came under fire last August when one of the INS's own internal monitors publicized the ineptitude and anti- asylum bias he observed in Port-au-Prince. He was sacked but later reinstated.

DISTURBING PROMISES. Trying to placate immigrant-shy politicians in Florida, Clinton pledged that the switch would bring no flood of refugees. Another official said the acceptance rate would remain at its current 5% level. That disturbs those who believe the persecution rate is growing. They argue that all Haitian refugees should be awarded temporary protected status, a category that admits refugees into the U.S. for only as long as their countries are in turmoil and that applied during crises to Salvadorans, Kuwaitis and Somalis.