海角大神

The US government is building a task force prepared to聽interdict and repatriate Haitians who try to flee their devastated聽island. So far, there are no indications of any mass migration, though a photo of a crowded Haitian ferry touched off concern in south Florida last month after the earthquake.

The US Coast Guard has 16 cutter ships in and around Haiti as part of an聽effort to patrol the area for smugglers and to send a message to聽Haitians: Don鈥檛 try to flee.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano set up a task聽force two days after the Jan. 12 earthquake to hedge against the possibility聽that Haitians would attempt to leave the island for the US, in search of food, water, and shelter. Over the past week or so, officials have been聽assembling the unit at a site in Miami and can mobilize it if needed, says Lt.聽Cmdr. Chris O鈥橬eil, a spokesman for the US Coast Guard.

The US announced last month that any Haitians who attempt to leave the聽island for the US without proper documentation would be repatriated. No such mass migration has occurred, nor, so聽far, are there indications that it might.

South Floridians had braced for such a possibility after a photograph surfaced聽last month showing Haitians crowded onto a ferry and possibly headed to the US. The image turned out to have caused false alarm, but聽it did point up the worry that with hundreds of thousands of Haitians聽affected by the quake, the US would have to prepare a plan.

In fact, there have been only two incidents since the earthquake in which migrants were聽intercepted: one in Nassau, Bahamas, where a boatload of 54 Haitian migrants聽were discovered, and another near the island of Turks and Caicos, where聽marine police intercepted a boat with about 122 Haitians. That number is about average for a normal period, and US officials themselves have not seen聽any migrations since the earthquake, according to O鈥橬eil.

American ships have not sealed off Haiti to prevent a mass聽migration. But in what has been dubbed Operation Vigilant Sentry, US officials are monitoring Haitian waters carefully, with聽four Coast Guard cutters off the shore and another on聽the lookout for skiffs or ferries that could be taking Haitians the short聽distance to the Florida coast. Others are conducting routine monitoring of smuggling routes.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 want the bad guys to think we left the back door open because we聽are so focused on operations in Haiti,鈥� O鈥橬eil says.聽

Should Haitians try to leave their island nation en masse, US officials could activate what鈥檚 called the 鈥渕ass migration plan.鈥� Put聽together by Homeland Security officials in 2004, it triggers legal聽authorities for local and federal agencies. Among other things, it allows the Defense Department to deploy ships to the region to hold聽hundreds of migrants at sea before they are repatriated.

The mass migration plan has never been implemented, but a task force has prepared for the possibility several times, O鈥橬eil says, including during the transition in power in Cuba听蹿谤辞尘 Fidel Castro to his聽brother Raul in 2006. US officials also prepared for a migration from Haiti聽in 1994, when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to power, and about 1,000 Haitians聽were intercepted and repatriated.

Although there are no protections for undocumented Haitians who attempt to leave their聽island, those who are already in the US have received temporary聽protection for 18 months.

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