~ Plan to be announced today or tomorrow, says Jacoba ~
PHILIPSBURG--Haitians living illegally in the Netherlands Antilles have temporary immunity from repatriation, Justice Minister Magali Jacoba said Wednesday.
Central Government representatives are expected to announce today or tomorrow details of a plan that will keep undocumented Haitians in the Netherlands Antilles while international aid workers and governments try to help Haiti recover from last month's earthquake. She didn't say how long their immunity would last.
Widespread checks for undocumented residents on the five islands begin next week Monday, March 1. That is a guarantee, Jacoba reiterated Wednesday.
She said Haitians living without papers could have diplomatic immunity once they registered themselves as undocumented. "Haitians who should have been deported ... will not be," Minister Jacoba told The Daily Herald. "The situation right now in Haiti is very, very painful."
For humanitarian reasons, the Central Government hopes to avoid sending Haitians back home.
Curaçao newspaper Amigoe reported Wednesday that Haitians were the largest group of non-nationals to request temporary legal status in November and December last year.
She didn't say much about the plan except that illegal residents would be given a choice: register as undocumented with the knowledge that they won't be repatriated in the future, or don't.
"We have to announce how it's going to work," the minister said, hoping temporary immunity would stir undocumented residents to surrender themselves. "It's either they register and we don't repatriate them or they don't register and we repatriate them."
Lt. Governors of the five island territories agreed to suspend organised immigration controls during the Brooks Tower Accord (BTA) project.
Launched November 3, BTA gave thousands of undocumented persons who had lived in the Antilles longest the chance to become legal residents. It lasted six weeks. More than 4,000 persons applied in St. Maarten and more than 7,000 applied in Curaçao.
The BTA residence permits start the holders at zero years, and they must register with the Immigration and Labour Departments each year to keep their legal status. All current BTA permits expire on November 3, 2010.
On Tuesday the minister was discussing the conditions for undocumented Haitians to stay here longer after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on January 12 rocked the island, killing more than 200,000 persons and leaving hundreds of thousands of others homeless.
