Feds asked to release deceased Haitian baby's parents

MIAMI (WSVN) -- A South Florida Haitian activist group and politicians are calling on President Obama's administration to help release a couple from detention so they might bury their baby girl.

Chandeline Leonard and Luscene Augustin's 8-month-old daughter, Luana, drowned when the refugee boat the family was riding on capsized off Boynton Beach in May. While U.S. Marshals continue to hold the pair as part of the agency's human smuggling operation investigation, the infant's body continues to hang in limbo inside a morgue.

Haitian Women of Miami's Marleine Bastien believes the devastated parents' mental anguish is being unnecessarily prolonged. "They haven't been able to sleep at night. They've had nightmares about their baby drowning every single night," she said Tuesday at a conference in the neighborhood of Little Haiti. "As a matter of human decency, they should have been released in order to bury their little baby girl."

According to State Representative Ronald Brise, the parents' detention is punishment enough. "A mother and a father: All they can picture is their child drowning. No other recourse," the Democrat said at the meeting, in which children held signs bearing messages that echoed the gathering's general sentiment. "They are in a cell, and that's all that they can think about. All we are asking today is for these parents to be able to have some sort of closure."

Albert Noel, a relative of the couple, offered these simple words in seeking the community's assistance: "Please help," said the cousin.

Part of the urgency is because the morgue needs to make space and release the baby's body. It's been more than three months. The funeral arrangements are already set and paid for, and of course the parents want to be there.

A written plea sent to the Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano has gone unanswered, and the U.S. Attorney's Office will not comment on a pending case.

Eight other people drowned in that escape from Haiti.

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