Evelyn, a Haitian immigrant, wears a permanent tracking device while she awaits a decision from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on whether she will be deported back to Haiti or allowed to stay with her 5-year-old daughter, who was born in the U.S. (SANDRA C. ROA/NYT INSTITUTE

MIAMI — One early morning last September, in the same month four hurricanes swept through Haiti, federal immigration agents entered the home of a Haitian woman living in South Florida and strapped a monitoring bracelet to her left leg.

They gave the woman, Evelyne, 35, specific orders: She had to report to an immigration office every Monday morning; she could be out of her house only between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.; she could not leave Miami-Dade County; and she had one month to leave the United States.

Evelyne and more than 30,000 other Haitians facing deportation got a reprieve on Sept. 19, when the Department of Homeland Security ceased deportations because of the devastating hurricanes. (Evelyne did not want her last name used because she was worried her deportation might be accelerated.)

But deportations resumed three months later, despite letters protesting the move. Haitian President Rene Preval and immigration advocates have written to President Bush and the Homeland Security Department seeking “temporary protected status” for Haitian nationals in the United States, as well as a continued suspension of deportations until the country can recover.

Temporary protected status, or TPS, is a special state granted to immigrants of certain nationalities who are unable to return to their countries because of armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Ralph Latortue, the Haitian consul general in Miami, said Haiti was in no condition to accept deportees because the nation’s resources were focused on reconstruction after the hurricanes. Latortue said the situation in Haiti was so dire that he would not even respond to requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seeking Haitian travel documents for deportees until his government gave him the OK.

“There are billions in crop and infrastructure damages,” Latortue said. “Haiti has been affected in every single sector. It is inhumane to send people back to a country where they may not have their family left. It’s just condemning these people.’’
A joint World Bank, United Nations and European Commission assessment released last November determined that total losses from the storms — “the largest disaster for Haiti in more than 100 years” — could equal 15 percent of Haiti’s gross national product.

Marlene Bastien, director of Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami, a Haitian advocacy group based in Miami, said she believes Haiti meets all the requirements for the United States to grant illegal Haitians temporary protected status.

“No one understands why Bush hasn’t granted” the status, Bastien said. “I would say racism, but even racism has a limit. Just consider, Hondurans are still getting TPS from a natural disaster that occurred in 1999. After four consecutive hurricanes hit Haiti, the country still doesn’t have a semblance of recovery.”

In addition to Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Sudan have temporary protected status through 2010.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, acknowledged in a statement released in December the “devastation” the country had endured but concluded that “Haiti does not warrant a TPS designation.” The statement noted that options for staying in the United States still existed for some Haitians, such as the chance to apply for student or non-immigrant status.
Though there are more than 30,000 Haitian immigrants with final orders of deportation — 29,783 not in detention but under supervision, and 522 in detention — only 31 have been deported since Dec. 9, according to Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Antoine Isma, a lawyer with the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, said deportations can take a long time to process. Detainees are usually kept in the dark about their deportation dates even after their asylum cases have been finalized.
One of Isma’s clients, Ernst Jean-Louis, 32, received his deportation orders in November but is still being held at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach. Isma said he had no idea whether Jean-Louis would still be in detention when he went to visit him.

Evelyne, who fled Haiti in June 2001 after her brother was killed, arrived at Miami International Airport carrying the passport of a person who had died. She was detained at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami for eight days before she was released to seek asylum status.

While her application made its way through the legal system, Evelyne managed to build a life for herself. She found a cleaning job and sent hundreds of dollars to her family in Haiti. Her daughter, Amyline, was born in 2003 and is now in kindergarten.
Latortue said one reason for granting temporary protected status to Haitian nationals is that remittances — about $1.6 billion in 2006, according to the Inter-American Development Bank — are far more vital to the country’s reconstruction than international aid.

In August, Evelyne’s asylum application was denied because she did not meet the standards for “credible fear.” She said she never received notice that she was going to be deported and realized what had happened only when federal agents showed up at her house.

“They tell everybody to go through the line and follow the process,” said George Francis, a lawyer with Catholic Charities Legal Services who has been helping Evelyne since her case has been finalized. “This is a perfect example of someone who came in, applied for asylum, which she’s legally able to do, and at each step of the way the door keeps getting slammed in her face. So what options does she have?”

Evelyne said her mother’s house washed away during one of the hurricanes, and she doesn’t have anyone to leave her daughter with in the United States if she’s sent back to Haiti.

“If I get sent back, I won’t have any means of support,” she said, speaking in Creole with Francis serving as translator. “No one in my family can work. I don’t know what we’re going to eat.”

Several Florida lawmakers have criticized the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to resume deportations.

“Many deported Haitians simply have no communities to return to,” U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Democrat, said in a statement released in December. “It is disappointing that the Bush administration would even consider sending people back to this incredibly fragile nation.”

Bastien recently met with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team and asked the incoming administration to reinstate the moratorium on deportations. The transition officials were noncommittal, Bastien said, telling her they were only gathering information.

“We’re talking about people who’ve been here for 15 years. They have families, businesses,” Bastien said. “People’s lives are at stake.”

In the meantime, Evelyne is coping with uncertainty. On Sundays she goes to Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood to listen to Father Reggie Jean-Mary. On Mondays she reports to the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office as part of her monitoring requirements. When she goes out with her daughter, she makes sure to wear long clothes to cover the ankle bracelet.

Evelyne says teachers have told her that Amyline has grown distant in class.
“We deal with this on a daily basis,” Evelyne said. “Now when I go out she wants to come with me because she’s afraid I’ll be taken away.”