Denied visas, man's family barred from funeral

A Haitian immigrant's common-law wife and their two children were denied temporary visas to attend his funeral after a grisly construction accident.

BY PETER BAILEY

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Menes Daniel never wanted to leave this world without Saint-Rose Guerrier at his side.

She was supposed to be standing here alongside his coffin, mourning his death and celebrating his life. She would have kissed him above his forehead and whispered goodbye in Creole.

But instead she wept alone in Port-au-Prince because U.S. officials barred her and Daniel's two kids from attending Saturday's funeral at Holy Family Catholic Church in North Miami.

''We're hurt. . . . His death is painful enough,'' said his niece, Florence Bazne, of North Miami. ``But to not let his family come and grieve is devastating.''

Daniel, 48, and two other construction workers were crushed to death in concrete May 6 when the roof of a Bal Harbour high-rise building collapsed onto the 26th floor. A torrent of wet concrete poured over the men, killing them almost immediately.

Guerrier, Daniel's common-law wife, and their two children, Bedline, 24, and Bedlin, 17, applied for a temporary visa to attend the funeral. But, despite the efforts of civic groups and elected officials, they were denied because U.S. officials did not believe the family would go back to Haiti when the visa expired.

On Thursday, State Department officials at the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince rejected the visa request, stating in a short e-mail to the family that ``despite the reason for Ms. Saint-Rose Guerrier and her children's desire to visit the U.S. and their family's interest in the visit, they were unable to provide any evidence of ties to Haiti that would compel their return from the U.S.''

To obtain a temporary visa, applicants must show they do not intend to stay here by proving they own property or have a job in their country.

Lincoln Connolly, an attorney representing Daniel's family in a wrongful death suit, said the decision was unreasonable.

''We're talking about a country that's in constant turmoil. . . . How can people show proof of what they don't have?'' he asked.

''I'm really sad for his family,'' he said.

Daniel left Haiti in 1981, moving in with his sister Solange and her five children in North Miami. He supported them and his family in Haiti.

In several letters to the embassy, Solange Daniel pleaded with officials to grant her brother's family the visa.

''We are all a very tight-knit family. My brother was very close to his wife and children and loved them a great deal. He flew back to Haiti several times a year to see them when he could afford it and called them as often as we could, '' she wrote on May 23.

She went as far as promising U.S. authorities that she would give up her U.S. citizenship if his family violated any visa rules during their visit.

Late Saturday morning at the Southern Memorial Gardens cemetery, as pallbearers lifted her brother's coffin into upright marble pillars, she threw herself on the coffin.

''No! . . . No! . . . Don't take him!'' she wailed.

The Rev. Franky Jean has gotten used to seeing empty pews at the funerals of Haitians. In the past year, he said, five families he's known were denied visas.

'It happens all the time, the families are never allowed to attend their loved ones' passing,'' he sighed.

It was evident at Saturday's funeral that Daniel touched the lives of many he left behind.

Bazne, Daniel's niece, knows this all too well.

''He was good to me. . . . Words can't describe how much I miss him. . . . He was always someone I could depend on,'' she sighed.

Guerrier might have agreed -- if she had been there.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/14737862.htm