WASHINGTON -- Some White House policies are proudly announced. Others just sort of ooze out when nobody's looking.
That was how the Bush administration quietly but radically changed its refugee policy to discriminate against Haitian asylum-seekers.
Under a policy imposed after a large boatload of Haitians landed in Florida in December, asylum-seekers from Haiti are locked up for months without a bond hearing. Most of those 187 Haitian refugees remain locked up almost a year later.
Out of the sight of most Americans, they also remained mostly out of mind until the nationally televised sight of 220 more Haitians jumping ship into Biscayne Bay near Miami revived many memories two days before Halloween.
The Haitian boat people issue is a conflict between the shabby way our policy treats asylum-seekers from Haiti vs. the fair way it treats those from everyplace else.
In December, the Bush administration quietly created three distinct refugee policies.
At one extreme are those fortunate Cuban refugees who, upon their arrival on dry American land, receive fast-track preferential treatment under what's left of this nation's Cold War crusade to topple Fidel Castro.
In the middle is just about everybody else. Asylum-seekers from Colombia, Zimbabwe, Iraq, North Korea and elsewhere are routinely released from custody on bond, once the Immigration and Naturalization Service has determined that they have a credible fear of persecution if they are returned home.
But not Haitians. Set off at the poor end of American hospitality, Haitian asylum-seekers have been detained without any right to bond hearings until their cases are heard.
Asked about the disparity at his news conference yesterday, President Bush said he thought "the immigration laws ought to be the same for Haitians and everybody else, except for Cubans." Well, pardon me, Mr. President, but the laws already are the same. It's your Haitian policy that discriminates.
President Bush's brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, doesn't like the policy. It plays havoc with his relations with South Florida's economically thriving Haitian community.
But his biggest Haitian headache came when live television caught the latest boatload jumping from a wooden freighter into shallow waters and scrambling onto a busy causeway, tying up traffic and startling afternoon drivers.
Quicker than you could say "homeland security," Democratic Rep. Carrie Meek of Florida confronted Governor Bush and demanded that he "call your brother," the president, "and ask him to release those Haitians." The startled Jeb responded that he already had talked to his brother about the "unfairness" of the policy.
He later announced that he had heard from Washington that the administration was looking for a solution, although, he said, "I don't know if they're going to do anything."
Some Bush defenders have decided it is more appropriate to criticize Ms. Meek, the Congressional Black Caucus and anybody else who has supported Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Mr. Aristide, you may recall, was restored to power eight years ago with the help of U.S. troops sent in by President Bill Clinton at the Black Caucus' urging to oust the military junta that had overthrown the democratically elected Mr. Aristide.
But, as I found in Port au Prince last summer, it's hard to say just how much Mr. Aristide is in charge these days.
Paranoid, perhaps as a result of having been ousted once, he has given too free a hand to the grass-roots "Popular Organizations" that revere him but that also have created roving bands of paramilitary squads led by warlords who terrorize anyone who displeases them.
Mr. Aristide's critics call for his removal but offer no clue as to who might replace him. His opposition includes some of the same brutal forces that overthrew democracy before.
Neither the INS, the Justice Department or the White House has presented much of a justification for the Haitian detention policy. That lack of accountability has left Haitian-Americans and others to wonder whether it might be racially motivated.
Gee, I wonder where they get that idea?
No, there are no easy diplomatic solutions for Haiti. But, as Mr. Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, has said, one does not provide solutions in foreign policy so much as one must constantly and relentlessly manage problems.
Establishing democratic rule in Haiti was a big problem. The maintenance of democracy there calls for more attention and management from the United States. A great nation looks for ways to help its weak neighbors, not just discriminate against them.
Clarence Page is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing newspaper. His column appears Fridays in The Sun. He can be reached via e-mail at cpage@tribune.com.