Two Haitian children to be returned

MIAMI (AP) -- Two Haitian children separated from their motherafter a boat packed with would-be migrants ran aground off the<br>Florida coast will be reunited with her in the United States, authorities

Thursday, January 13th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MIAMI (AP) -- Two Haitian children separated from their motherafter a boat packed with would-be migrants ran aground off the
Florida coast will be reunited with her in the United States, authorities determined Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek said Yvena Rhinvil's children --10-year-old Marc Yvens Dieubon and 8-year-old Germanie Dieubon -- will travel to Miami in a few days, as soon as they are issued passports by the Haitian government. They currently are living with an aunt.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service granted the children humanitarian parole on Thursday, INS officials said.

"This decision ends a frightening episode and addresses a major wrong that was done to this mother and her young children," Meek, D-Miami, said Thursday night.

Rhinvil, 33, and her children were separated after a smuggling boat from Haiti carrying 411 passengers ran aground about two miles off the Florida coast New Year's Day.

Rhinvil, who is pregnant, was one of four refugees brought ashore for medical treatment. Her children were left on the boat
and were among the 407 people returned to Haiti.

INS officials said Thursday Coast Guard officials didn't know Rhinvil had children on board before they took her from the boat. If they had known, they wouldn't have been separated the children from their mother, the INS said in a statement.

The mother, who was released from an INS detention center outside Miami on Wednesday to a sister who lives nearby, is applying for political asylum.

In a statement to U.S. immigration officials, she said she fled Haiti because of the country's political situation.

Advocates for equal treatment of Haitians attempting to reach the United States heralded the INS decision.

On Wednesday night, about 3,000 people attended a candlelight march in Miami to protest the U.S. policy of sending illegal
immigrants from Haiti back.

Haitian and African-American activists have said they are troubled by the contrast between the huge outcry to keep 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez from being returned to Cuba, while Haitian children are routinely sent back to their country.

On Thanksgiving Day, Elian was rescued from an inner tube off the coast of Florida after a boat sank in an attempt to reach the United States. His mother, stepfather and nine others died.

Under U.S. policy, Haitians and others who arrive illegally are sent back. The Cuban Readjustment Act of 1966 grants any Cuban who reaches American soil the right to stay.

Activists say Haitians are routinely repatriated without being offered a chance to request a hearing to determine if they have a "credible fear" of persecution in their homeland.