The cutters are on the way, carrying hundreds of heartbroken souls to a place where mad-dog soldiers go on murder sprees.

Our own government admits as much. The U.S. ambassador to Haiti was briefly recalled in protest of bloody thuggery against a political candidate. Last week, for the first time, diplomats mentioned military intervention as a possible option.

Yet the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, says the Haitians can be "repatriated," a sterile euphemism for what's really happening: They're being returned to the bowels of hell.

Many Floridians, though saddened, also feel a secret sense of relief. It's not because they're coldhearted xenophobes—they're not. They are simply weary and worried.

Miami has absorbed more immigrants, in a shorter time, than any city in recent history. The resources here are stretched dangerously beyond their limits. Schools are jammed. The county hospital is overwhelmed. The jails are overflowing. Decent, affordable housing is a fiction.

From a practical view, it's insane to accept thousands more refugees when we can't care for those who are already here. From a moral view, though, it's hard to defend slamming the door.

U.S. immigration laws are disgracefully riddled with double standards. If everyone were treated the same, we wouldn't have the depressing spectacle now unfolding in the Caribbean.

The Haitians' major disadvantage is being Haitian. If they were Mexicans, we'd invite them to pick lettuce in California. If they were Nicaraguans, we'd let them wait here until we're sure Managua is running a democracy. And if they were Cubans, they'd be welcomed the moment they were plucked from the sea.

For years, the INS defended itself with a standard line: Most Haitians trying to enter the United States were fleeing poverty, not political persecution. This made them deportable.

New events have turned U.S. policy inside out. Today Haiti is wracked by bloody turmoil, and Cuba's economy is rotting. Florida is receiving political refugees from Port-au-Prince and economic refugees from Havana. Language is the main difference between them.

You cannot separate tyranny from the despair it produces, whether the tyrant is named Duvalier or Castro. Like Cubans, Haitians are victims of generations of political oppression. It isn't fair for the law to treat them differently, but it does.

Think of the outcry if the Coast Guard began hauling Cuban rafters back to Havana, or shipped them to a sweltering barbed-wire camp! Every politician in South Florida would scream bloody murder.

Haitian refugees have few such powerful supporters. Sen. Connie Mack has spoken most strongly for their cause—but a sad cause it is, because there's no painless, or shameless, solution.

It would be folly to throw open our borders to all who are poor and hungry, or who suffer under a harsh, neglectful regime. We'd be swamped. Given a choice, half the hemisphere would pack up and move to Miami in a heartbeat.

But if we're firm about restricting immigration, then we also must be fair. Racist policies add to the pain of those we shut out, and to the misery of waiting relatives.

Today, U.S. strategy is to gild the double standards and set a stern example that will scare potential refugees. The sight of overcrowded American cutters pulling into Port-au-Prince harbor might deter future voyagers, but not for long. Dreams die hard on the coast of Haiti.

In a dozen tiny inlets, old boats are being patched, sails stitched, provisions hoarded. Men gather with nervous families. A captain arrives, and money changes hands—someone's life savings.Then the journey to Florida begins.

Those who fail the first time will surely try again.

Any sane person would.

The newest pirate of the high seas doesn't even have a cannon.

It's the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which is extracting heavy booty from ships that rescue refugees at sea. Blackbeard himself would be envious.

Last week, crew members aboard the cruise liner Royal Majesty, sailing between Miami arid Cozumel, Mexico, spotted a flare in the night sky. Using searchlights, Capt. Petro Maratos found a raft carrying eight Cuban refugees.

The men had been at sea for five days. Some were dehydrated and hallucinating. The Royal Majesty picked them up and took them to Key West.

For its act of kindness, the cruise ship now faces a $24,000 fine. That's $3,000 per rafter. According to INS policy, anybody who brings undocumented immigrants ashore is subject to monetary penalties.

For the Royal Majesty, it was the third time in two weeks that it had picked up Cuban refugees near the Florida coast. The first groups totaled 11 persons (including a young child), and the passenger liner was rewarded with a fine of $33,000.

The heavy penalties are meant to discourage alien smugglers, not humanitarians. But the practical effect of the INS action against the Royal Majesty is to deter all private American vessels from rushing to the aid of immigrants who face possible death on the water from starvation, sunstroke or drowning.

Whatever one's feelings about this country's screwed-up immigration rules, few would argue that a boat captain should ignore anyone's desperate cry for help, including refugees. Yet that's what is happening. Many rafters have reported that they were spotted—and passed—by several commercial and private vessels before finally being picked up.

It's not surprising, given the harshness of the INS fines. Maybe the cruise companies can afford a few thousand dollars here and there, but many shipowners can't.

Ironically, the oldest of maritime laws require sea captains to assist those in danger or distress. The INS seems to be encouraging just the opposite. It's nuts, like something from a Joseph Heller novel.

The awful consequence is that innocents will probably perish, if they haven't already, because some skippers are afraid to do the right thing. How anyone can turn his back on a child in a drifting raft or a wallowing old sailboat is almost beyond comprehension, but it happens.

The case of the Royal Majesty has its own sour irony. For years the cruise lines have been under fire for surreptitiously dumping garbage in the ocean, but the feds have seldom cracked down with the tough fines provided by law. Now comes a cruise ship captain who nobly attempts to save a few lives—and the government instantly hammers him for $57,000. Some message.

Although INS fines can be appealed, many boat owners don't have the time, patience or money to fight the bureaucracy. It seems a simpler matter—and one of basic human compassion—for the Clinton administration to revise immigration policy to allow rescues at sea, without fear of penalty for the rescuer.

A $3,000-a-head fine is certainly justified for alien smugglers who prey on Cubans, Haitians and other poor immigrants. The trade in human cargo is lucrative and sometimes brutal in Florida waters, and we need strict laws.

But it's indecent to punish honest captains and shipowners for undertaking legitimate rescue missions, often at considerable risk and expense. When a man is sick or parched or delirious from the sun, when he's in a sinking raft surrounded by sharks, there's only one thing to do.

You save him. You don't ask to see a visa.