What Petrona Mateo Esteban has is simply a well-founded fear of death.

Maybe the answer is tennis rackets.

I was wondering what it takes to convince U.S. immigration authorities that Haitians seeking political asylum in this country now have a legitimate claim.

Massacres of voters in the streets apparently are not sufficient evidence of persecution, nor is the assassination of a presidential candidate and attacks on his supporters.

After all the bloodshed and terror, Haitians fleeing to the United States are still being turned back, and many of those here still face deportation.

So I was wondering what it takes to be considered a political refugee, when along comes the case of Madalina Liliana Voinea. She is a ^-year-old tennis player from the Communist-bloc country of Romania.

You'll remember that, shortly before Christmas, Madalina came to Miami Beach to play in the Rolex International Tennis Championships at Flamingo Park. After a scheduling mix-up, she got in a cab, went to the Miami airport and asked for asylum.

You've never seen our government work so fast.

After a two-hour interview, INS district director Perry Rivkind decided that Madalina would face persecution if she went back to her homeland. Said Rivkind: "If she returned, she would be restricted from playing tennis, from going to college, and maybe she would be jailed."

Asylum was promptly granted, a press conference was called and a new media sweetheart was born. Madalina immediately got on a plane to New York, where, according to United Press International, she "spent the day shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue and strolling down Fifth Avenue admiring the window displays."

Personally, I wouldn't want to go back to Romania either, but the haste and fanfare with which the INS welcomed Madalina to America is puzzling to other applicants.

The usual criterion for granting political asylum is a "well-founded fear" of persecution. As human rights violations go, it's hard to compare a machete murder with somebody nixing a six-figure endorsement deal for Puma tennis sneakers.

Madalina came here courtesy of the Romanian government, which regards its promising young athletes as national assets, and treats them accordingly. Compared to most of her countrymen, she led the charmed life. Compared to Haitians, she lived in a paradise.

Based on the examples of Ivan Lendl and Martina Navratilova, it certainly will be easier for Madalina to become a millionaire as an American. This is true for athletes from practically any other country, Communist or not. Everyone wants to play in the United States because there's more money here.

Haiti doesn't produce many international tennis stars, as most people are too busy trying to find food and avoid getting shot by government-backed goons.

Given Madalina's case, if I were scheming to escape Haiti—and who wouldn't be, with the rigged election coming up?—the first thing I'd do is get myself an inexpensive tennis racket.

As soon as I got stopped by the Coast Guard or Border Patrol, I'd tell them that I was a budding tennis star, trying to make it to Wimbledon. I'd say that I could never go back to Haiti—not because of the gross political atrocities, but because they don't have any good grass courts.

What would the INS say to this? Imagine the scene if the next rickety boat to hit our beach delivered 200 people carrying Wilson tennis rackets and asking where's the next tournament.

Something tells me there would be no big press conferences, no happy feature stories, no trip to New York for a stroll down Fifth Avenue.

Somebody in Washington would come up with a new excuse as to why young Madalina Voinea is welcome, and the Haitians are not.

Maybe it would be the tennis rackets themselves. Maybe only refugees playing with graphite get asylum.

Sen. Connie Mack has arrived at the startling conclusion that U.S. immigration policy appears unfair in its disparate treatment of Haitian and Cuban refugees.

There's a real shocker. The Haitians have been getting shafted for only about a dozen years now. It's nice that somebody in Washington finally noticed.

Mack's moment of revelation came after two outrageous incidents made the double standard impossible to ignore.

On July 7, a Coast Guard cutter intercepted a wooden sailboat packed with 161 Haitian refugees and two Cuban rafters, whom the Haitians had rescued at sea. The Cubans were brought to Miami, while most of the Haitians were returned to Port-au-Prince.

Even the most cold-hearted bureaucrat could grasp the awful irony. To the Haitians on that creaky sailboat, the Cuban rafters must've seemed like kindred travelers—poor, like themselves, but brave enough to risk an ocean crossing in pursuit of a new life. Of course the Haitians would reach out and help; they shared the same dream.

Then with the interdiction came the bad news, and excuses: The Cubans get to stay because Cuba won't take them back. The Haitians have to go because Haiti will. So much for being good Samaritans. News of the refugees' plight sent a crackle of anger through Miami's Haitian community. This time the discrimination was so flagrant—and the juxtaposition so sad—that politicians had no place to hide. How could one seriously defend a policy that welcomed Cuban refugees but rejected the Haitians who had saved them?

Last week, a new spark erupted. All it took was one stark, indelible image on television: Haitian stowaways, manacled and caged on the hot deck of a freighter.

It could've been a flashback to the 1500s, when slave ships sailed the tropics. But this was 1991 in Miami, Florida. The United States of America.

Where men whose only crime was to seek a better future were being locked in chains.

The five stowaways were removed from the freighter and brought to the Haitian consulate. Arrangements were made to send them home. When immigration officers arrived to take them to the airport, the Haitians cried and struggled and begged to stay. In the scuffle, one managed to escape.

Most of that, too, was captured on television. It was painful to watch.

But if you stayed tuned a little longer, you saw another kind of immigration story, one with a cheerier angle. A young Cuban baseball player named Rene Arocha had defected to the United States, slipping away from his teammates during a stopover in Miami.

Now Arocha was being hailed as a hero, wined and dined and fitted with a new Italian suit and a silk necktie. No manacles on his wrists, no INS agents at his side. Arocha told reporters that he throws a 92 mph fastball. He said he wants to play in the major leagues. One of his former coaches called him "the Dwight Gooden of Cuba."

Back home, Arocha led a more comfortable and privileged life than many of his countrymen. He was not a political activist, just a ballplayer with a good right arm. He didn't leave Cuba to escape persecution, but to seek fortune. He said lots of other players would love to do the same thing.

And why not? In America, a 92 mph fastball is worth millions of dollars. A Wheaties commercial can't be far behind.

That Arocha will be allowed to stay is a foregone conclusion. INS looks favorably on sports celebrities. It matters little that he isn't a true political refugee; neither was Ivan Lendl or Martina Navratilova.

Destitute Haiti, not having an abundance of tennis courts or baseball diamonds, doesn't produce many tennis pros or big-league pitchers. But it is a place that, like Cuba, produces many brave dreamers.

To favor some over others is more than an injustice. It shames this country, and all of us whose ancestors made the same journey.