By Mary Snow, CNN

Nearly 2,000 miles from Haiti, there’s a rip­ple effect from the earth­quake that dev­as­tated the coun­try on Jan­u­ary 12. U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion agents have arrested 140 Hait­ian men and women who have crossed the bor­der from Canada into Ver­mont since late January.

Many had gone to Canada well before the earth­quake to seek asy­lum, and thought they could take advan­tage of a relaxed U.S. pol­icy on deport­ing Haitians.

“One of the things that’s hap­pen­ing is that some of these indi­vid­u­als that have pre­vi­ously been either deported or ordered deported and are look­ing for refuge in Canada, have entered Canada ille­gally, are now look­ing to come back into the U.S. and pos­si­bly take advan­tage of the tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus that our gov­ern­ment has given,” said David Aguilar, act­ing deputy com­mis­sioner at U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Protection.

That tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus allows Haitians who were in the United States at the time of the earth­quake to stay longer, regard­less of whether they were in the coun­try legally or not.

But the pol­icy does not pro­tect Haitians ille­gally enter­ing the coun­try now. “We are going to appre­hend them,” said Aguilar. “These are peo­ple that should not have come into this coun­try and applied for a pro­gram that they do not ben­e­fit from.”

That mes­sage was likely lost in trans­la­tion, said David Watts, a court-appointed attor­ney for three Haitians charged with ille­gal entry and jailed.

“I think there’s no doubt that there was some con­fu­sion,” Watts said. “None of them have immi­gra­tion lawyers, they’re rely­ing on the word on the street and the word in the community.”

One of the men Watts rep­re­sents is Arry Seguin, whose story is not uncom­mon. Seguin was liv­ing in the Hait­ian com­mu­nity in Mon­treal after going to Canada in 2008 to seek asy­lum. Until then, he had been liv­ing in Florida with his wife and two chil­dren, now ages 6 and 2.

Seguin left the United States after los­ing appeals to stay. His wife, Louizette, a nat­u­ral­ized cit­i­zen, lives in a cramped apart­ment in Lan­tana, Florida, and doesn’t under­stand why her hus­band can’t join her.

“You see, every­thing is a mess with­out him. Noth­ing is work­ing well with­out him,” she says.

She says she strug­gles to take care of her chil­dren, but she is also get­ting calls from rel­a­tives in Haiti who are des­per­ate for help. It’s the rea­son she believes her hus­band tried to return to Florida. He never made it far beyond the Canadian-Vermont bor­der and was arrested in the early morn­ing hours of March 21.

Because Seguin doesn’t have a crim­i­nal record, his lawyer was able to reach a set­tle­ment with pros­e­cu­tors. For now, Seguin will be eli­gi­ble to stay in the United States under super­vised release, check­ing in with immi­gra­tion author­i­ties. It will be up to a judge to decide if that happens.

Watts expects his client will released from jail soon. While Seguin will even­tu­ally face depor­ta­tion, Watts says the goal is to return him to his fam­ily to weather their imme­di­ate per­sonal crisis.

“So he will have achieved his goal, but for the fact that he’s spent an awful lot of time in jail,” Watts said. “It would have been bet­ter, given what actu­ally hap­pened, if he had been able to come back and help sooner.”

Tak­ing the risk of get­ting caught was in the cards, says Chrissy Eti­enne, who works as an inter­preter for the Hait­ian men and women who’ve been arrested. Eti­enne is a Hait­ian native liv­ing in Burling­ton, Ver­mont, hav­ing recently grad­u­ated from Mid­dle­bury Col­lege. Because she speaks Cre­ole, she had signed up to be a trans­la­tor and was stunned when attor­neys called in Feb­ru­ary ask­ing for help.

Since then, her phone hasn’t stopped ring­ing and she’s met with dozens of Haitians who’ve been arrested, meet­ing them either in prison or in court.

“I think some thought there is a great chance I will get caught,” says Eti­enne. “I think some expected to get caught. I think it was get to the U.S. at all costs, get to my fam­ily at all costs.”

“I think that it is con­nected to the earth­quake,” says Eti­enne. “When you lose your home, when you lose Haiti as a whole. What is left?”

Giv­ing a voice to the arrested Haitians, she said, has been tough since she is restrained in what she can do.

Eti­enne describes a com­mon sce­nario with the men and women she deals with, say­ing, “There is that, that wish for a sys­tem that is more per­sonal. Couldn’t I just explain this to a judge? To some­one? That I am not a crim­i­nal. That I have no back­ground or crim­i­nal back­ground. I am just try­ing to get to my fam­ily. Isn’t there some­one who is going to believe that story? And who is going to hear me?

“And there is that moment where … I know what the attor­ney is going to say and I have to relate it with that same sort of calm, col­lected feel­ing, but I am also watch­ing some­one fall apart.”

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/22/haiti.us.refuge/?hpt=T2