Sale v. Haitian Centers Council
"Sale v. Haitian Centers Council" is a significant Supreme Court case that emerged in the context of a large influx of Haitian refugees fleeing political instability and poverty in the early 1990s. As many Haitians attempted to reach the United States in makeshift boats, the U.S. government, under the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, implemented a controversial policy to intercept these refugees at sea and return them to Haiti. This policy sparked legal challenges, with a federal appeals court ruling that it violated the Refugee Act of 1980 and international protocols regarding the treatment of refugees.
The case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the government's policy by an 8-1 decision. The majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, argued that international treaties did not apply to a nation's actions toward individuals outside its borders and noted a lack of evidence supporting the notion that Congress intended to protect refugees beyond U.S. territory. In contrast, Justice Harry A. Blackmun's dissent emphasized the moral obligation to protect refugees from persecution, regardless of their physical location. This case illustrates the complex interplay between immigration policy, human rights, and national sovereignty.
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Subject Terms
Sale v. Haitian Centers Council
The Case: U.S. Supreme Court decision concerning Haitian refugees
Date: Decided on June 21, 1993
Significance:The Sale decision allowed the U.S. government to capture fleeing Haitian refugees before they reached the shores of the United States and to return them to Haiti, where they possibly faced political persecution.
During the early 1990’s, political instability and poverty caused large numbers of Haitians to attempt to flee to the United States in makeshift boats. In response, both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations pursued a policy of intercepting the refugees at sea and returning them to Haiti. In 1992, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that the policy violated the Refugee Act of 1980 and the United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Before the Supreme Court, the government defended the policy as necessary to prevent a “humanitarian tragedy at sea,” which would result from tens of thousands of Haitians drowning in boats that were not seaworthy.
The Supreme Court upheld the government’s policy by an 8-1 margin. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens concluded that the treaty could not be read to say anything about “a nation’s actions toward aliens outside its own territory,” even though the policy possibly violated the “spirit” of the treaty. Regarding the federal law, moreover, there was “not a scintilla of evidence” that Congress had intended to protect refugees beyond the national borders. Stevens also mentioned that a U.S.-Haitian treaty of 1981 authorized the U.S. Coast Guard to intercept vessels engaged in illegal transportation of undocumented aliens. In a strong dissent, Justice Harry A. Blackmun asserted that the 1980 law prohibited the government from returning refugees to their persecutors, whether or not they were on American soil.
Bibliography
Legomsky, Stephen. Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy. New York: Foundation Press, 2005.
Loescher, Gil, and John Scanlan. Calculated Kindness: Refugees and America’s Half-Open Door. New York: Free Press, 1986.