Menendez on Deported Haitians

Ana Menendez's is on a Haiti kick these days. Here's the latest in a series of columns on Haitians and what she considers the injustice of being deported back to Haiti. This one was on the front page of the Sunday paper and has a nice three-page spread with several color pictures.

Some "money" quotes from the column:

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- At 30, Watson Navarin already is living the end of his story. The boy who left Haiti for the hope of America returned 11 years later as a convicted felon. His forced homecoming held none of the sentimental promise of the exile's return and all the bitterness that his family tried and failed to deliver him from.

Exploitation, cruelty, indifference. Haiti offers its poor many reasons for leaving and very few for returning. Those who do often come back against their will.

(...)

Navarin was deported to Haiti in 2004 after a drug conviction, but he still talks and dresses like the teenager from Asbury Park, N.J. Last Thursday, he was wearing long baggy pants, a jersey and a cap -- a light blue ensemble dedicated to the glory of the Lakers and the Clippers.

Tall, strong and foreign, he stood out in the hardscrabble streets of the capital where his presence was greeted with a kind of unfriendly curiosity. The outfit, the big silver chain and his English marked him as DP, a member of the shadow diaspora of deportees that even Haitian leaders are blaming for the crime and violence here.

Ana feels bad for Navarin because he gets harrassed for what amounts to being a show-off. I can't gather the sympathy for him, I'm sorry.

Jean Destin left Haiti for Miami when he was five years old. He says he was arrested for drug possession, jailed and deported in 2001 at the age of 25. He arrived, disoriented, at his aunt's house in Petite Place Cazeau, a Port-au-Prince suburb.

''I'd forgotten the language,'' he said. ``My own family couldn't communicate with me. I didn't know how to ask for a glass of water.''

Today, he lives in a concrete addition to his aunt's house. The 8-by-8-foot space is protected by security bars. On weekends, the space becomes ''Jean's Cine,'' where he plays Haitian movies on a television set powered by a Delco generator. Last week the hand-painted marquee announced Friday's offer: Love Has Limits. Destin charges the equivalent of 25 cents per person, and goud by goud is trying to make an honest living.

''I'm in my country, I'm not starving,'' he said. ``But there's nothing like the U.S.''

That's right...not only is Destin not starving, but he attempts to make an honest living. Try doing that in Cuba.

Here's the grand finale:

Few seriously challenge the right of the United States to deport another country's criminals, but it's naive to think that the consequences of that decision affect only Haiti.

The idea of a world divided into neat, autonomous nation-states is for children and maps. Reality offers few flat comforts. The streets of Port-au-Prince point to all the ways countries interconnect, the way a decision in Washington ricochets in a Port-au-Prince slum.

And the way America's failure in its own inner cities echoes back into even more desperate places where castaways from the dream struggle to survive with whatever rough skills experience lent them.

That's right folks, it's America's fault. It always is for people like Menendez. And while we're at it, let's forget about things such as sovereign nations and borders, and things that, you know, ensure a country's identity and independence.

My oh my.