It sounds like a nightmare, but it's all too real: some young offenders who have agreed to plead guilty to a charge in exchange for moderate treatment, have found themselves deported to a "homeland" they have never seen. In the wake of new immigration reform laws, the government is attempting to remove felons, particularly drug offenders, from US soil altogether. PNS correspondent Lyn Duff talked to two deportees on a recent visit to Haiti. Duff is a reporter for YO! Youth Outlook, a monthly newspaper by and about young people published by Pacific News Service.

20 year old Joseph leaves a meeting of Chans Alternative, where he goes occasionally to meet other deportees and use their english language library. Photo by Jennifer Cheek, Copyyright 1997

PORT-AU-PRINCE-- Imagine waking up one morning and finding yourself in prison in a country you've never even visited. You know no one, don't speak the language, and learn that you may never be allowed to return to your family.

This nightmare is a reality for Robert, an 18-year-old raised in Boston. "Every day I think about killing myself," he says. "At least then I wouldn't be in this damn country anymore. Every day I got regrets. Sure, I messed up, but I don't know that what I did deserves a punishment like this."

In early 1996, Robert, then 17 and living in Boston, got into a fist fight during a high school basketball game. The fight escalated and Robert pulled out a knife. He was arrested and charged with possessing a weapon on school grounds. After spending several weeks in juvenile hall (his first time there), a public defender convinced him to plead guilty in exchange for a six-month sentence.

What neither Robert nor his attorney considered was the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) crackdown on immigrants -- even those who are legally "permanent residents" -- who commit crimes. In 1996, along with 50,000 "criminal aliens," Robert was deported to his "native country"--in his case, an island he had never set foot on.

Robert has lived in the United States most of his life, but he was born in the Bahamas, the child of Haitian laborers. The Bahamas expressly prohibits the children of Haitians from becoming citizens, so when Robert came to New York at the age of seven months, he was, officially, a citizen of the Republic of Haiti -- a country he had never seen.

While Robert was in juvenile hall in Massachusetts, he studied for and passed his Graduate Equivalency Degree (GED) test, and completed a training program in computers. Then, just a few days before his release date, he was suddenly transferred to an adult facility. The next morning he was brought to a hearing where the INS asked for and received permission to deport him.

"The next thing I knew," Robert recalls, "without my family being told about it or anything, I was on a plane to Haiti." He spent two weeks in jail in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital city, and was then released to live with a distant relative. He has had trouble finding a job, learning Creole, and getting along with his cousins -- but worst of all, he is homesick.

"I miss the food," Robert says in an interview at his new home in Port-au-Prince. Not just MacDonald's, but stuff like milk and apples. The milk here comes in boxes and it tastes all funky, Apples are too expensive. I miss living in the city, kicking it with my friends. I miss my mama."

"I spent a long time being angry and hating everyone," Robert continues. "Now I'm just bummed. I feel like what I did was wrong, but it wasn't wrong enough to warrant sending me here. I feel like I paid my price already, and now I just want to go home. But I can't."

According to INS press officer Karen Karushaar, 167 people were deported from the U.S. to Haiti in the first nine months of this year. This number includes juveniles who have committed "aggravated felonies, robbery, drugs," she says. "I think we can be glad that we're trying to get them out, we do not want them in our country."

Michelle Karshan, an American who works as the foreign press spokesperson for President Rene Preval, volunteers with young deportees in Haiti. She says she has seen dozens of people in Robert's situation. "They are depressed, they are remorseful. They realize how stupid their lifestyle was in the United States, and how they did not think ahead in terms of what the implications of their actions would be. They are separated from their families. They have mothers and fathers and siblings, and houses with bedrooms which they will never see again."

Joseph, now 20, was deported from the U.S. almost two years ago. He had been charged selling drugs, and his attorney, like Robert's, told him to plead guilty in exchange for a suspended sentence, not realizing it would put him at risk of being deported.

"When the plane landed," recalls Joseph, "I thought, 'This is it. It's all over for me now. I don't know anybody in this country. I don't speak their language.' I didn't know what I was gonna do."

After a week in jail for "processing," Joseph was released to a family friend contacted by his family, when they learned about his deportation. The friend taught Joseph Creole, and helped him find part-time work. But nothing can make up for the loss of his family and friends. "I sold forty bucks worth of pot and now I'm never gonna see my family again."

"I think about my neighborhood," says Joseph. "I remember every street, every crack in the sidewalk. Maybe I'm Haitian by birth, but America raised me. I belong there. That's my home."