The Catalyst

The latest threat of compromise, however, "could be a disaster," as Steve Forester kept warning. "We need Lincoln to talk to [relevant committee members]," he urged Diaz-Balart's legislative assistant Thomas Intorcio during a meeting in a red-carpeted, high-ceilinged conference room. "If this [compromise] is allowed to go through, the Haitian community would feel this is a sellout and a total defeat, and therefore a setback for Lincoln and Jeb."

An enthusiastic Intorcio assured the group: "I had a call yesterday from a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. He was checking on the ground what the level of support was, and I think he's very pleased."

"When this is all over," Jean-Robert Lafortune promised as the group filed out of the conference room, "we intend to invite [Diaz-Balart] to Little Haiti."

The next meeting was not so upbeat. Some of the Haitians had been trying to arrange a discussion with Lamar Smith's aide Laura Baxter. Smith had listened to the Haitians' concerns during one of their first trips to the Capitol, but the encounter had been uncomfortable. Most of the group was surprised to run into Baxter while she was having lunch in the cafeteria of the Rayburn Building, one of the congressional office buildings. She agreed to an informal discussion and to relay the visitors' concerns to her boss.

About a dozen members of the Haitian delegation drew up chairs. Baxter -- young, pale, serious -- was literally trapped in her seat next to a wall. The two sides couldn't find a single point on which they agreed. When Baxter mentioned that Smith considered Nicaraguans and Cubans to deserve some help because they had fled communist regimes, the Haitians complained that "persecution is the same whether it's from a communist or a noncommunist government."

"I understand," Baxter responded, adding that the insupportable economic conditions in Cuba and Nicaragua also had to be taken into account. The Haitians tried to argue that Haiti's shaky economy and lack of infrastructure couldn't handle an additional burden of 100,000 returning citizens, but Baxter contended there was evidence some conditions were improving. At that, Miami attorney Michael Ray angrily rose and walked out.

"At this point I'm not feeling like you're listening to me," Baxter said, appearing close to tears. "I'm trying to take all this back to my boss and have a discussion."

Again the aide asked what additional compromise the Haitians would be willing to make if that were necessary to save the bill. Again they told her they couldn't accept any change.

Everyone stood up and pulled the clustered chairs away from the table to make room for Baxter to leave. Several in the group remarked on the distress they had unintentionally caused her. "All those black people around her made her feel threatened," one observed, and the others nodded. Their mood, amid the bantering workers bustling by with loaded trays, was subdued. They were tired after two days of walking and talking, and they didn't know what they had to show for it when they caught the flight back to Miami that evening.

A few hours later Bastien, Lafortune, Broward activist Aude Sicard, and Little Haiti businessman Georges William encountered Ernesto Ramos, a veteran aide to Carrie Meek, at the Washington Convention Center. Meek was appearing on a panel at the Congressional Black Caucus's annual convention. Ramos excitedly motioned the four into an empty meeting room. Top Democrats, he said, including House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, were actively pushing the bill, and support within the conference committee (for the legislation passed by the Senate, not a compromise) now looked almost certain. "This morning [Bob] Graham and Gephardt were talking only about that legislation," Ramos added happily. "They're pushing for this. Gephardt said, 'I'll be with you.'"

"Wow," Bastien said warily, still mindful of the bill's seesawing fortunes. "That's the best news we've heard since we've been working on this thing."

In the taxi to the airport that evening, Bastien and Sicard reminisced about a December 1997 mass lobbying trip to Washington, an event meant for visual impact, unlike the more frequent, smaller delegations better suited for person-to-person contacts. Scores of Haitians from Miami, Chicago, New York, and Boston split up and poured into the congressional office buildings. The Miami contingent included dozens of factory and nursing-home workers sent by the labor union UNITE! whose membership is heavily Haitian. "There were all kinds of Haitians going down the halls of Congress," Sicard recalled. "A hundred people going from one senator's office to another. Older people, young kids, a six-month-old baby."

"Then we went to see a debate on the floor of the Senate," Bastien added. "People were so proud -- it was the first time they had lobbied for themselves. In the past somebody would come back to the [Haitian] community and say, 'I went to Washington and did this and that,' and that's the last anyone heard. This movement is like all civil rights movements. The people are at the heart of it."