NEW YORK -- Mayor David Dinkins Monday charged that the Bush administration's drive to forcibly return Haitian refugees to their homeland was racist and marked a 'sad chapter' in U.S. history.
'For our country to say those people must go home is wrong,' he said.
'I think it's a sad chapter in our country's history.'
Dinkins said the Haitians were being treated unlike any other refugees trying to come to the United States and that he was so angry it left him at a loss for words.
'I struggle to try to find the right words. 'Outrage' somehow doesn't seem to be quite strong enough,' said the mayor.
Asked if he thought racism was behind the Bush administration policy, Dinkins said, 'Ican't find any other reason.'
Dinkins, who presented the keys to the city to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide just days before he was forced from power last September, made the comments as the Coast Guard returned 381 Haitians to their homeland.
It was the first forcible repatriation of refugees since the Supreme Court ruled Friday that the government could send back those it deemed unqualified for political asylum.
The exodus of thousands of Haitian refugees -- who have been held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and on Coast Guard cutters -- began after the military coup and ensuing crackdown on supporters of Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president.
But the administration has argued that most residents are fleeing for economic reasons and not because of political persecution.