Together Again
Haitian journalists in exile are reunited with their 4-year-old son after nearly two years apart.
Stanley Mathieu walked into CPJ headquarters one afternoon dressed in a three-piece ivory suit and grinning from ear to ear. He posed for pictures with staff, answered questions from the Americas program staff, and munched on animal cookies. At 4 years old, he was one of CPJ's youngest and most anticipated visitors.
Stanley is the son of Rony and Micheline Mathieu, news reporters for two private Haitian radio stations, who were granted asylum in the U.S. in March 2006. They were forced to flee their country in 2005 after receiving a series of death threats in response to Rony Mathieu's reporting on police misconduct, including the alleged assassinations of gang members.
The Mathieu family at CPJ headquarters in June.
When they fled Haiti, they left Stanley, 3 at the time, with his aunt and grandmother. Once here, they applied for asylum. They thought it would only take weeks to prepare and receive approval for their asylum application. It took months. (In the worst cases, CPJ has known journalists who have waited more than two years to receive political asylum).
Then began the process of bringing Stanley to the U.S. CPJ had arranged for legal guidance and a translator for the Mathieus' asylum application. The next step was working with them to file an asylee relative petition. Six months later, the petition had been approved in the U.S, but Stanley, who remained in Port-au-Prince in the care of his grandmother, still needed a visa from the embassy in Haiti.
Meanwhile, kidnappings in Haiti of relatives of Haitians living in the diaspora were on the rise, and had Rony and Micheline deeply worried about their son's safety. Political and economic turmoil in Haiti dramatically slowed down visa processing. The wait was excruciating for Micheline, who told CPJ that every time they spoke on the phone, Stanley would ask her when she was coming to pick him up.
CPJ regularly contacted the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, the State Department's Haiti desk, and the Department of Homeland Security until, finally, after eight months, Stanley received a visa last year.
Unfortunately, the Matheius are not the only journalists CPJ has worked with who have endured such a family separation. Sierra Leonean television journalist Around Deen fled to the U.S. in 1999; it wasn't until August 2002 that his wife and three children boarded a plane, visas in hand, to join him.
When the Mathieus heard that their son at last would be able to travel to New York, they called CPJ, ecstatic. Nearly two years had passed since they had seen their little boy. Could they bring Stanley by to meet the staff?
As he sat in our office, Stanley seemed unfazed and unaware of the political turmoil that had affected his young life and the dervish of activity involved in getting him here. But he did take pride in all the letters he had learned to write. It could be that journalism runs in his family.
