Hatian Asylum-seeker now John Ashcroft 's prisoner -

• Although Immigration Judge Freed David Joseph on bond - Ashcroft holds him Indefinitely

David Joseph is a little guy, about 5-foot-5, maybe 115 pounds. He's 20 years old, looks younger, and has the sluggish demeanour and sad expression of one who is deeply depressed. "I thought I would come here for a few days and be released," he told me in a soft voice, his words translated by an interpreter. "But I watch the other people come and go, and I am stuck here." Joseph is a refugee from Haiti who is seeking asylum in the United States. He is not a terrorist, and no one has even suggested that he is a threat to anyone. And yet he's been in federal custody for nearly two years. An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals have ruled that he should be freed on bond, pending a final ruling on his asylum request. But U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft won't let him go. Playing his ever-present, all-encompassing terrorism card, Ashcroft personally intervened in Joseph's case, summarily blocking his release. According to the attorney-general, releasing this young Haitian would tend to encourage mass migration from Haiti and might exacerbate the potential danger to national security of nefarious aliens from Pakistan and elsewhere who might be inclined to use Haiti as a staging area for migration to the United States. [more ]