US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan would announce later the same day (Feb. 27) that Mr. Cazeau was one of 15 people arrested for having obtained access badges to secure areas of Logan by "providing false information on their application forms…. It is unacceptable for individuals who are not legally authorized to work or live in the United States and whose identities have been falsified, to have access to the most sensitive areas on an airport." Across the US, hundreds of undocumented immigrants have been arrested in a post-Sept. 11 airport crackdown.

Six months later, sitting next to his wife in their living room, Cazeau stares at the floor and speaks softly in French. "When they arrested me, they didn't tell me why." An interpreter recounts his words.

The room is modest, decorated with a framed wedding photograph and a miniature Statue of Liberty atop a cabinet. Calendar cut-outs of New York City and its Twin Towers are pinned high up on the walls.

"They put me in jail and let me out after nine days. That was the first time I could see a lawyer," he says. "Right now I don't know what's going to happen. The lawyers have been back and forth. They have brought federal charges and I face five to 10 years in jail if they find me guilty. We don't know if they'll deport us."

It is this uncertainty that's causing the most anguish.

"We are the victims of [Sept. 11] too. We are the ones paying for [the attacks]."

"The reason we brought our family here is the freedom. We don't really have the freedom in Haiti. We wanted our children to have a better life. But now we don't know what's going to happen to me, to us, to them."

Cazeau says he had a good job in Haiti. "I had to leave everything to come here. Now I could lose everything."

– Steven Savides, photo by Stuart S. Cox Jr.