The U.S. Coast Guard says it stopped a dangerously overloaded boat filled with migrants from Haiti, and got assistance from Cuban authorities.A Coast Guard cutter spotted the migrants' open sailboat 20 miles northeast of Cuba. Chief Petty Officer Crystalynn Kneen says the crew of the cutter sent a smaller boat to assist the migrants because their vessel was taking on water.The Coast Guard said in a statement Wednesday that 50 migrants were taken on board the cutter Reliance but another 77 on the small sailboat refused to board or accept life jackets. Their boat drifted into Cuban waters where the Cuban Border Guard took custody of them.The Coast Guard says the 50 detained by the U.S. were turned over to Haitian authorities Tuesday.
Haiti’s President Says Trump Got at Least One Thing Right
President Donald Trump may have a point when he says the U.S. is wasting money sending aid to foreign countries. And that’s according to the president of one of Trump’s “shithole” nations.Haiti President Jovenel Moise said he was “taken aback” by the “bizarre” derogatory remark Trump allegedly made about Haiti in a White House immigration meeting last month. First reading about it on Twitter, Moise summoned U.S. diplomats for an explanation, one of whom was “embarassed“ and “at a loss for words,“ he said.
Despite the undiplomatic language, the two leaders would find common ground when it comes to foreign aid. Trump has threatened to cut funding and complained that the U.S. hasn’t received enough in return from foreign countries. Moise said billions have been squandered in Haiti.“Right now in Haiti, the money of foreign taxpayers, your money, is being wasted,” the president said in an interview in Port-Au-Prince. “Every year we receive $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion in aid, or more. However, it’s all consumed in a state of disorder that constitutes public international development aid.”Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has received attention in recent months as Trump has pushed to overhaul U.S. immigration policy, favoring educated, skilled workers over immigrants from poor nations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The administration removed Haiti from a list of countries eligible for temporary work visa programs and plans to end a program protecting tens of thousands of Haitians from deportation.
‘Republic of NGOs’
Trump allegedly described Haiti and unspecified African nations as “shithole countries” in a heated discussion about immigration reform with U.S. lawmakers on Jan. 12. He subsequently posted on Twitter that he, “Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country.”
Moise, an entrepreneur who built a banana export business before taking office just weeks after Trump was inaugurated, said migration benefits all countries and that Haitians have made substantial contributions to the U.S. economy and culture. According to the Pew Research Center, about 110,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants live in the U.S., including those with protected status.Moise aimed his strongest criticism not at Trump, but at the way foreign aid has been administered in Haiti, a country with so many charities it’s been referred to by academics and local press as the "Republic of NGOs.”While he acknowledged Haiti still needs foreign funding, Moise said the Haitian government had been put “in hibernation” while multilateral organizations, charities, foreign governments and non-governmental organizations have wasted billions on development projects that are overpriced and inefficient.“If during the past 40 years the billions of dollars that were spent to assist in Haiti’s development did not provide the expected results, it’s because the paradigm, and approach must change,” Moise, who spoke mostly in Creole and French, said via a translator. “Haiti must have the ability to obtain loans for investments needs, to create wealth, to invest more, to provide electricity 24 hours a day.”
Government Plan
The Caribbean country of nearly 11 million has received $5.1 billion in aid from the U.S. alone since the 2010 earthquake, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. The quake devastated the country, killing at least 200,000 people, leaving 1.5 million homeless and leveling much of its fragile infrastructure. Billions poured in from donors in the years that followed.Yet, the money has done little to address poverty. Haiti’s per-capita gross domestic product declined to $761 in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund. Neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, has a per capita GDP nearly 10 times higher.Haiti’s history of political instability -- marked by a series of coups in the 1990s and 2000s -- corruption and weak institutions have made charities and foreign donors wary of turning over funds to the government.Moise said he has held talks with the IMF, the World Bank, foreign governments and other organizations about giving the government more control. He wants aid agencies to follow a development plan that prioritizes the construction of a nationwide electricity grid, schools and health clinics, reforesting the countryside, and building roads. His four-year plan calls for $1.8 billion of investment.The government last year launched pilot projects in those areas, including one that equipped local public works departments to build roads for a fraction of the price that they were previously being constructed, he said. Moise keeps three toy construction trucks on his nearly empty wood desk in temporary government buildings located beside the remnants of the national palace that was destroyed during the quake.“We’re saying now we want to think of, conceive and implement the development ourselves,” he said. “It’s not that we’re telling our partners to leave, but we want to do it in a state of accountability.”
What A Haitian Entrepreneur And Haitian-American Nurse Can Teach Us About Identity
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“I am a woman first. And then a strong Haitian woman.”
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“I’m very comfortable with my femininity and my assertiveness. In Haitian culture, women are the center of the household; providers and caretakers. Just because I can cook at home doesn’t mean I can’t run a multimillion dollar business. Feminism, to me, is the freedom to be a complex, multidimensional individual without living my life in silos."
Guelmana RochelinGuelmana Rochelin, Founder & CEO of Mana S.A.
Johaida Jean-FranoisJohaida Jean-Franois, Labor & Delivery RN at Boston Medical Center
From government officials to late night comedy hosts, there has been a lot of conversation around Haiti. But, hearing from those who know it best may offer other narratives on Haiti and on identity. Meet Guelmana Rochelin and Johaida Jean-Franois. One is a Haitian immigrant who returned home to build a company, Mana S.A., in Port-Au-Prince. Another is a first-generation Haitian-American who deftly weaves her values into the work she does as a Labor and Delivery Registered Nurse at Boston Medical Center.A Tale of Two LivesGuelmana tells a story of growing up in an idyllic community in Côteaux, Haiti. “…Tranquil, warm, and family-oriented…My great-grandmother lived with us and the entire extended family all lived a stone’s throw from one another.” Even after her family immigrated to the United States and put down roots in Philadelphia, her passion and love for Haiti never abated. In fact, she was so certain of her future, upon becoming a naturalized citizen, she told her parents, “You guys are taking something from me. I can never be President of any country now.” Luckily, she had other ideas of how to impact Haiti. After attending Villanova University and Harvard Business School, she worked at Goldman Sachs and co-founded a healthcare company with her sister, Affinity Healthcare Solutions. But the lure of Haiti always beckoned. Eventually, on a visit back to Haiti, she realized it was time to return and began to build a venture that would provide economic opportunity to the Haitian community, Mana S.A. The idea came from Guelmana’s realization that the small purchasing power of most Haitians made it hard for many to buy a box of cereal. She also observed some very enterprising merchants buy a box of cereal and then sell individual servings of cereal on the side of the road. And with that, Mana S.A. was born. Guelmana imported machines from around the world, built her own production line, created the cornflakes at the facility, and began to make individual servings of cornflakes. And as we learned on Conan O’Brien, many find the cornflakes pretty tasty. Guelmana’s hope is that by providing employees a living wage – one that enables them to not only feed their family, but also invest in their children's education, she will help lay the foundation of Haiti’s future.Johaida’s story begins in Everett, Massachusetts with deep roots firmly entrenched in Haiti. Her mother worked in the telecommunications industry in Haiti and upon immigrating to the U.S., transitioned into healthcare. As the matriarch of the family, her mother served as a spiritual pillar, as well as a constant source of inspiration. According to Johaida, “I have never seen her struggles, but I have always seen the result of her struggles. And they were always good.” Growing up, Johaida was reminded in ways glaring and subtle that she was different. Sometimes it was the bottle of Malta in her lunch as opposed to her fellow students’ Capri juice pouches. Or the incredulous remark when a person with long hair and light skin was discovered to be of Haitian descent. She channeled her frustration and anger in those experiences towards her education. Johaida graduated from Rivier University, successfully passed the NCLEX-RN, her nursing boards, upon first attempt, and following her mother’s footsteps, entered the healthcare industry. She wanted a community focused on the care of others, not dissimilar to the community her mother experienced in Haiti. Johaida chose to work at Boston Medical Center because as the largest safety net hospital in New England, BMC serves a very diverse population. According to their website, 57% of patients are from under-served populations and 32% of patients do not speak English as a primary language. Despite the numerous languages heard throughout the halls of BMC, as Johaida says, she speaks a universal language: comfort in holding a patient’s hand, care in rubbing a patient’s back, and safety in reassuring eye contact.
Being Haitian, Being a WomanI am always curious to see how women live their multifaceted identities. And it was not surprising to see that Johaida and Guelmana had differing views on how to live their complex identities.For Johaida, she emphatically said, “I am a woman first. And then a strong Haitian woman.” Much of our conversation centered around her work caring for so many new women and newborns. Being surrounded by such diverse women going through a common experience drives her strong gender identity.Guelmana’s answer was more complicated. “I’m very comfortable with my femininity and my assertiveness. In Haitian culture, women are the center of the household; providers and caretakers. Just because I can cook at home doesn’t mean I can’t run a multimillion dollar business. Feminism, to me, is the freedom to be a complex, multidimensional individual without living my life in silos."Both emphasize the importance of choices and the refusal to be categorized and put into a box. And despite their different professional paths, both live lives infused with passion, surrounded by community, and guided by family. Johaida and Guelmana approach their multifaceted identities differently, but one common aspect of their narratives holds true – they have a lot of pride in the strength and resilience of the first black republic, Haiti.By: Peggy Yu for Forbes.com | February 1, 2018
Haiti Has Been Mistreated By Politicians Like Donald Trump for Centuries
In this op-ed, writer Fabienne Josaphat explains the history of Haiti, and how it has been mistreated by politicians long before President Donald Trump's recent remarks.President Donald Trump’s ignorance of Haitian contributions and history continues to mislead the American people. On January 11, the President of the United States met with officials on immigration and allegedly said, regarding Haitians and Africans, “Why do we want all these people from shithole countries coming here?” The Washington Post first reported the news.These statements made on the eve of the anniversary of the January 12, 2010 earthquake that killed up to 300,000 Haitians. As a Haitian immigrant living in South Florida — where, in 2015, an estimated 127,189 people of Haitian ancestry lived in Miami-Dade County alone — I could feel the indignation broiling beneath my people’s skin. Locally, councilman Alix Desulme, who represents District 4 in the City of North Miami, called the alleged comments “divisive and racist,” and demanded an apology.“Sadly, we have a president who continues to show America how great we can become through his destructive selfishness,” the councilman said. The mayor of North Miami himself, Dr. Smith Joseph, chimed in with his own statement, saying, “Our nation should not tolerate this overt racism from a president who is sworn to protect us.” Haitian-American Congresswoman Mia Love, a Republican from the state of Utah, said, “The President must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned.”Instead, what came hours after the news of the reported comments broke, was a tweet from the president in which he denied making the comments, calling Haiti “poor and troubled.” He claimed to have wonderful relationships with Haitians, but failed to acknowledge a single one by name. None of this, again, is surprising.Fox News host Tucker Carlson affirmed that the president was merely voicing what his base was already thinking, casually asking, “Why can’t you say that?” on air. Many Trump supporters disagree with the notion that Trump is a racist, despite his allegedly saying “We should have more people from Norway” after his “sh*thole” comment was made.Describing a person’s country as a “sh*thole” shows an absence of critical thinking, and is a display of ignorance. It echoes an existing sentiment of xenophobia in this country from Trump voters, most of them white, now referred to as “the forgotten men and women.” They are being misled by a man who knows nothing about the Haitian people and their history. Yes, the U.S. should respect the Haitian people simply because of their humanity. But Haiti also deserves respect because it spent its entire existence as a nation contributing to the enrichment and greatness of superpowers like America.Historically, Haiti has always offered its best to the world and is proud of its accomplishments. It was the first to lead a successful slave-led rebellion to topple French slave owners, claiming its freedom in 1804. Without Haiti, there would be no Louisiana Purchase, a treaty that earned the United States the entire Louisiana territory and more than doubled the country’s size. New Orleans’ vibrant culture would not be the same without the influence of integrated Haitians. In Illinois, what would later become the city of Chicago was founded by a Haitian-born pioneer named Jean-Baptiste Point du Sable. In addition to liberating slaves in other countries, Haitians helped America fight its Revolutionary War, and when World War II drove countries to form urgent alliances, Haitian pilots joined the Tuskeegee Airmen as part of the U.S. Army Air Force.Our decision in 1804 to live free or to die was heroic, but the U.S. did not officially recognize this independence until 1862. France put the nation in the humiliating position of having to pay reparations at an annual rate for the slaves they lost, so Haiti was forced to borrow money to repay their oppressors, and borrowed from banks in France and the U.S.. Several initiatives have been launched to cancel Haiti’s debt, but pressure to repay debtors initiated further borrowing, keeping Haiti in constant crushing debt.The U.S. profited off Haiti during the American occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934, suppressing riots and killing rebels. Initially led by then-President Woodrow Wilson, the U.S. military imposed racist soldiers onto the Haitian people, introducing a new strain of cruelty that led to the decapitation and dehumanization of insurgents.The dictatorship of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, which lasted in Haiti from 1957 to 1971, was able to endure because of American complicity. Specifically, as Duvalier murdered and brutally oppressed Haitians, the U.S. looked the other way because Duvalier was effective at staving off communism, which the U.S. saw as a threat. When that regime was toppled when Duvalier’s son was overthrown in 1986, the nation was completely impoverished, its funds depleted to line the pockets of tyrants like the Duvaliers. In addition, because of its debts to the U.S., Haiti has been by default constantly subjected to American intervention.Despite our contributions to America, Trump’s language doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise to Haitians, as we too often face this type of disregard from so many in power. Yet, during his presidential campaign, Trump made sure to draw attention to Hillary Clinton’s actions regarding Haiti to discredit the Democratic candidate. In 2009, when she was Secretary of State, Clinton suppressed Haitian minimum wage, at the behest of manufacturers, then after the 2010 earthquake, Bill Clinton became head of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. He enlisted the Clinton Foundation to build shelters, a relief effort considered to be a disaster, called out even by the likes of Oxfam.With more than one million people displaced after the 2010 earthquake, the U.S. poured aid money into Haiti, but years later, investigations have found that very little money actually reached Haitian citizens. Haitians still lack shelter that was promised by the American Red Cross after the humanitarian organization raised almost half a billion dollars from helpful donors. The Clinton Foundation, again, is also implicated in failing in their recovery efforts to aid Haiti with reconstruction projects after the earthquake despite raising more than $30 million.Then, Haiti suffered a devastating cholera outbreak that started at a United Nations peacekeeping camp, and as of November 2017, the Trump administration has refused to assign unspent UN peacekeeping money to help combat the epidemic. Instead, his administration chose to end Temporary Protective Status for 60,000 Haitians sheltered in America as a result of the earthquake.This sent a clear message to Haiti and its diaspora, and now, his comments about them speak volumes. In Trump’s world, there is no room for black and brown people to thrive. Yet, he shows an acceptance of white nationalists, identifying as “very fine people” some of the those protesting to keep Confederate monuments after the deadly Charlottesville rallies.He does not know the history of Haiti, and he doesn’t comprehend the significance of Haiti’s contributions, because he doesn’t care to. His wealth and privilege have allowed him to erase others to the point of invisibility.But Haitians exist as a reminder that the damages of racism and oppression cannot sway self-determination. We are not going anywhere. In fact, Haitians continue to thrive despite adversity. Our ancestry and culture empower and enable us to bounce back and carry on. If the whip of slavery did not break us, the words of an inveterate racist will not kill us. Haitians sacrifice for others even when others don’t sacrifice for them. I see this as the definition of love: the continuous devotion to others with no expectation of reciprocity.As a Haitian immigrant, I am tired of always asking for apologies, so I’m not personally interested in one from Trump. I’m interested in active and constructive repairs to our dignity in the American media, demonstrating an intent to rebrand and respect Haiti, rather than baiting audiences into buying into images of poverty and misery, because one narrative does not define us. Apologies, to me, are futile unless they are backed up by action and determination for change. Until then, we are planting our feet in the ground and waiting for the next insult to fly.By: Fabienne Josaphat for TeenVogue.com | January 16, 2018
GOP Lawmaker Matt Gaetz Slams Haiti: ‘Sheet Metal And Garbage’ Everywhere You Look
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z31C6I9YUbg[/embedyt]Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) slammed Haiti on Tuesday, saying the country is covered with garbage and that conditions there are “disgusting.”
Gaetz was defending President Donald Trump, who last week reportedly dismissed Haiti and African nations as “shithole” countries while meeting with lawmakers to discuss immigration.
Trump has denied the comments.
“I would not pick those terms, but I would say that the conditions in Haiti are deplorable, they are disgusting,” Gaetz told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “I mean, everywhere you look in Haiti, it’s sheet metal and garbage when I was there.”
Earlier in the conversation, Hayes tried to engage Gaetz by asking how he’d feel if someone used Trump’s reported language to describe Florida.
“If I called ― and you’ll forgive me for using the language of the president ― but if I called Okaloosa County a shithole, you’d understandably be upset with that, right?” Hayes asked.
Gaetz, whose district includes much of Okaloosa County, replied:
“Yes; I could also prove you wrong, because I could bring you to Okaloosa County and show you that it’s the home of the most beautiful beaches in America. I don’t know that in Haiti they can make the same claim.”
Trump’s comment set off protests by the Haitian-American community, including a demonstration outside Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Monday.
“I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking their parents are from a shithole country,” protester James Leger said, according to NBC Miami. “We’re asking you to apologize to the Haitians.”
Another protester wanted to remind Trump that Haitian immigrants contribute to America.
“The president does not understand us,” Jean Bruny, a Haitian pastor in West Palm Beach, told the Palm Beach Post on Monday. “We are not coming here to do any bad thing, we are coming here for a better life and to help our family in Haiti. We pay taxes, we buy houses, we contribute to the United States.”By: Ed Mazza for HuffingtonPost.com | January 16, 2018
Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as 'shithole' countries
President Donald Trump referred to African countries, Haiti and El Salvador as "shithole" nations during a meeting Thursday and asked why the U.S. can't have more immigrants from Norway.
Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as 'shithole' countriesWASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday referred to Haiti and African nations as "shithole countries" during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House, a Democratic aide briefed on the meeting told NBC News.Trump's comments were first reported by The Washington Post, which said the group of nations referred to also included El Salvador.The comments came as senators huddled in the Oval Office with the president to discuss a path forward on an immigration deal. Trump questioned why the United States would want people from nations such as Haiti while he was being briefed on changes to the visa lottery system.According to the aide, when the group came to discussing immigration from Africa, Trump asked why America would want immigrants from "all these shithole countries" and that the U.S. should have more people coming in from places like Norway. Thursday's meeting came one day after Trump met with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg at the White House.Ap source familiar with Thursday's meeting told NBC News the president was particularly frustrated during discussions about the visa lottery system — a program Trump has railed against repeatedly in recent months. Another White House source explained the language Trump used as his way of trying to emphasize his support for a merit-based immigration system.The White House issued a statement that did not deny the remarks."Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people," White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah told NBC Thursday, as part of a lengthy statement that did not directly dispute the language reportedly used in the meeting."He will always reject temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that threaten the lives of hardworking Americans, and undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway."Republican congressional reaction trickled in Thursday night, with some statements critical of the reported language calling on the White House to immediately provide an "explanation" or additional "context."But Republican Rep. Mia Love — the daughter of Haitian immigrants herself — released a tough statement calling Trump's comments "unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation's values" and demanding an apology from the president.And Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said in a tweet that the reported remark "ignores the contributions thousands of Haitians have made to our #SoFla community and nation. Language like that shouldn't be heard in locker rooms and it shouldn't be heard in the White House".It’s not the first time reports have surfaced of Trump speaking unfavorably about immigrants, and Haitians in particular. The New York Times reported in December that Trump said Haitian immigrants "all have AIDS," during a summer 2017 meeting about immigration.According to the Times, Trump also targeted Nigerian immigrants during that meeting, complaining that once they came the United States they would never "go back to their huts." The White House vigorously denied the claims in the story at the time.By: Ali Vitali and Kasie Hunt for NBCnews.com | January 11, 2018
Haitian American Students Association Holds Sit-In After Trump Administration’s TPS Decision
“So even if I’m here and I feel good my friends are aware of this I’m still bitter, very bitter.”
“When I say Haiti, you say ‘Rise Up,’” Mathania Toussaint, the PR chair for Haitian American Student Association (HASA), instructed the group of students and allies gathered on the steps of Kimmel Thursday night. Toussaint lead them in the chant, which swelled with each call and response.
This was the scene from the sit-in, organized in response to the Trump administration’s recent decision to strip immigrants of their Temporary Protected Status (TPS). HASA said it was necessary to bring attention to the move, which will affect immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua, Sudan and Haiti, because they believe the issue has been overlooked in discourse regarding immigrant struggles.
“After we first found out about the decision, HASA was kind of scrambling because we found out about it over Thanksgiving break and had a planned meeting,” Toussaint said. “So we flipped everything because this is more important. We need to talk about TPS. Trump has systematically removed immigrants of color from the U.S., it’s been group by group.”
Initially, Toussaint expressed qualms about the prospect of organizing the demonstration because she hadn’t planned a protest before. But the reaction from students, especially Haitian students like sophomore Fatima Julien, made it abundantly clear her decision to highlight this issue was necessary.
“After finding out about the TPS removal, I was like ‘Shit, what are we going to do…What can I do?’” Julien said. “Then finding out about the sit-in I harassed all my social media followers saying ‘Come: if you’re a social justice type I’m taking attendance.’”
“Being here, especially during the chant,” Julien continued, “I got a little emotional but it was good. It feels nice to be able to say that I was here and that my friends know about it.”
Julien, who immigrated to the U.S. two years ago, has family members who will be directly affected by the decision: a sister will have to return and cousins that were trapped under the rubble of the massive 2010 earthquake, will also be forced out of the U.S. In light of their trauma, Julien expressed trepidation about them returning to Haiti.
Despite those fears, she also made it clear she and her family would continue fighting to ensure everyone remained in the states.
The sit-in was planned to operate with the goals of bringing attention to the TPS matter and educating attendees on ways to help those affected going forward. Albert Saint Jean, the New York organizing fellow at the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and Ellie Happel an NYU Law graduate, both provided information on the latter.
Saint Jean recommended students reach out to organizations such as Haitian Women for Haitian refugees, Haitian Americans United for Progress and, the one he’s a part of, BAJI. “Because we’re actually in the communities doing work, helping people to get legal access,” he explained.
He added that often the help impacted communities need isn’t complex and can be as simple as assisting a family with filing paperwork.
Similarly, Happel suggested that helping the Haitian community could be very doable right here at NYU — with NYU Law and undergrads collaborating to monitor what’s happening in Congress, in Haitian neighborhoods and responding accordingly.
After the sit-in’s moment of silence for Haitians affected by the cholera epidemic the nation is still recovering from, attendees began to gather their belongings to leave. HASA president, Fabrice Juin, left those gathered with a final message.
“I personally only see things like these — sit-ins — as beneficial and productive if every single one of you leaves the space with more knowledge and ready to help physically and tangibly,” Juin said. “Thank you for showing up but I also want to let you know pay attention and ask yourself ‘What can I do in my own way to help the cause?’”
By: Arimeta Diop for NYUlocal.com | December 11, 2017
UN to Haiti: 'Proof is in the pudding' on Corruption
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) — The United Nations, which last month launched a fresh mission to promote long-term development in Haiti, has had it with nice words: when it comes to corruption and human rights, "the proof is in the pudding.""They have said they want to fight corruption, so they have to take responsibility," insisted Susan Page, who is heading the UN Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH)."I'm going to take them at their word, but I'm also going to help them if that is really what they want," the American career diplomat said.Elected president after an electoral crisis that paralyzed the country for two years, Jovenel Moise insists he is going to use his time in office to clean up Haitian politics."Corruption, in all its forms, eats away and atrophies the economy, it profoundly weakens the political foundations and destabilizes society's social tissue: corruption is a crime against development," the president, who took office earlier this year, told the UN general assembly in New York in September.The concern is that his words are taking their time in being translated into action. In late August, a minister was sacked over corruption allegations, but no legal action has yet been taken.The new UN mission starts just as one of the symbols of financial waste in Haiti resurfaces: on Thursday, the Senate will debate a parliamentary report accusing a dozen former ministers, who held office between 2010 and 2016, of "fraud on a grand scale.""We'll see how they react, not just in regard to the report but in general," said Page, pointing to Haitian institutions in charge of fighting corruption and money laundering."Will they strengthen the capabilities of agents in these organizations? Really put investigations in place which they will then pursue to the very end? Will they bring people to justice? We will see."Gnawed away by corruption, the country's justice system is notoriously slow-moving. Its prison population, 400 percent above capacity, is one of the highest in the world.Maintaining the rule of law also demands a real commitment to improving conditions in detention centers, but there, too, MINUJUSTH will not take the lead."It's an age-old problem that the Haitians will have to sort out themselves," said Page. "We are here to support, not to do it for them. They need to have the political will to do it."Restoring the UN's image in Haiti during this new mission will prove almost as big a task as overhauling its justice system.The 13 years of the preceding UN mission, known as MINUSTAH, were blighted by sex crimes perpetrated against Haitian woman and children by UN police and peacekeeping troops, as well as a cholera epidemic sparked by Nepalese peacekeepers that has already claimed 10,000 lives.MINUJUSTH is the UN's sixth peacekeeping mission in Haiti over the past 25 years, a country where there is very little risk of civil war, regional conflict or terrorist attacks. The label "peacekeeping" exasperates many Haitian politicians, who may support the drive against corruption but also want a debate to redefine the UN mandate.Aware of that debate, Page prefers not to take sides: "The UN Security Council considers it necessary to keep a certain level of stability here and to tackle the great challenges which threaten long-term development... that is not a mandate for development – that is to enable a transition between a peacekeeping mission and a lasting development."
By: Jamaicaobserver.com | November 29, 2017
Artist finds ‘calling’ after 2010 earthquake in Haiti
West Palm Beach artist Jason “JaFleu” Fleurant was so profoundly affected by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti, which left an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 dead and many more displaced on Jan. 12, 2010, that he had to do something to channel his emotions. So, Fleurant started to create.
“When the earthquake happened in Haiti back in 2010, something just took over me,” he said. “I couldn’t stop creating and in that, I found my calling or maybe my calling ended up finding me.”
Fleurant, 33, is a self-taught painter, but thinks his gift is greater than what he has learned so far.
“It started with me drawing what I was seeing on TV and then my friend Yanatha recommended I try painting on canvas, and the moment I did, everything changed,” Fleurant said.
“My family is from Haiti. So that feeling of knowing I had family and friends in the midst of it, that powerless feeling devastated me,” he said.
Fleurant believes it was a spiritual and artistic awakening. “That’s nothing but God,” he said. “The ancestors and spirits, whenever I create. I’m just the vessel.”
“I’d say the universe (had a plan). I didn’t go to school for it,” he said. “It’s all been from trial and error. Practice makes perfect, so I just kept doing it and doing it and in the process developed all my own unique styles.”
Although he explores imagery and an array of colors in his paintings, no image or color really excites Fleurant in particular. “I tell people all the time I have no earthly idea what I’m doing,” he said. “I just kind of go with the flow and whatever happens, happens.”
Fleurant, however, admits that color has always played an important role in his life. “I’ve always loved color, and that may be tied to being Haitian because in Haitian art there is often (many colors),” he said. “The only real conscious decision I make when it comes (down) to it is always trying to use blue and red somewhere in honor of Haiti.”
Fleurant has had celebrity encounters and is slowly gathering a following for his artwork. “My brother Jamaal ‘Visualist’ Clark and I (believe) if there’s a door cracked, we’re going in,” he said. “That mentality has led us to meet and give artwork to the likes of Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, Jill Scott, Swizz (Beatz) and more.”
Fleurant and Clark were at the Drink Champs Podcast where they got to meet Hip Hop star Noreaga and DJ EFN, which led to a meeting with music producer Swizz Beatz, Fleurant said.
“One minute I’m just chilling in the back and next I look up to see Swizz walking directly towards me. He didn’t even, at the time, know I had art,” he said. “For whatever reason he just walked directly to me and started talking. So then I told him I had this painting I wanted him to see. We unrolled it and he digged it.”
Fleurant said he envisions himself becoming a version of Walt Disney, Dr. Suess and Stan Lee. “Art is cool, but I don’t really care for the art world or just making paintings,” he said. “I’ve come to use all my artistic skills now to be able to create my own books — be it family books, graphic novels or more. I’ve created and fallen (in) love with my own characters and I want to bring them to life.”
For more information about Fleurant, visit jafleutheartist.com.
Q & AWhat are your hobbies? Honestly, I don’t have any hobbies. I think some would view art to be, but that’s my career and therapy, too.What would you do if you were invisible for a day? I’d have an exhibit of my works and wander around and listen to people’s true thoughts on it. That was always a dream that nowadays seems even more less than likely.If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be? Stevie Wonder — he’s hands down my favorite artist in all genres. I’d love to pick his brain.What’s the best advice you ever received?Paul Fisher once told me “Never wait to get your (expletive) together.” Too often we say ‘I’m going to do this or want to do this, but first I must do this.’ But, life is too short and the universe conspires for you when you move towards your dreams.What event in history would you have liked to have witnessed?Not so much an event but the whole movement of the Harlem Renaissance. From the artists going to Paris to get their props and coming home and banning together. I’d love to have been amongst that.What is your favorite childhood memory? Being at the kitchen table while my mom cooked and drawing ninja turtles and other cartoons that she too loved. Those were awesome memories that still stay in my head. Even when I quit art as a teen well into my adult years.Who is your hero, someone who inspires you?I’ll take that back to Stevie Wonder and the reason being, for someone to have no sight but see the world so clearly and create art that means so much. It’s inspiring and a reminder anything is possible.What is something that most people don’t know about you? How heavily I battle depression and mental illness. I used to be ashamed to say it. In fact, this is definitely the first time in any interview I have. But it’s important to address that, particularly in the black community. The arts have been very helpful with it and speaking to someone (about it) (with similar issues).What three things would you bring with you if you were stuck on a desert island? Music, art supplies and books and I’m good to go. I spend a lot of time outdoors, so I’ve grown accustomed to that.
By: Kyoto Walker Special to The Palm Beach Post for the Palmbeachpost.com | November 29, 2017
Millions at risk of famine in post-hurricane Haiti
It's been almost a year since southern Haiti was devastated by Hurricane Matthew.It has also been almost eight years since an earthquake killed more than 300,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.But a recent visit to a UNICEF treatment centre in the south shows everything continues to go wrong in the country.Dozens of malnourished children visit the centre daily, struggling against diseases and the endemic poverty that is so deeply entrenched in Haiti.Half of the country's population is malnourished. According to the World Food Programme, 1.32 million people are in Phase 3 Crisis, which means they are severely food insecure. Additionally, three million people are in Phase 2 Stress, which mean they are food insecure.Unfortunately, this is nothing new.Haiti has been struggling to feed its people for years. It is one of the poorest countries in the world.Natural disasters only deteriorate the situation. Hurricane Matthew had a devastating effect on food production. Agricultural plots, seeds and irrigation systems were destroyed.One year on, not much has changed.Everyone we spoke to repeated the same phrase over and over again: "I used to have … but now it's gone."It was very little, but at least some had a business, or seeds, or nets and other sources that would help them feed themselves. But they were destroyed by the hurricane.The UN has some small programmes assisting farmers, and is currently working on long-term development ones. But that's not enough to get people out of the current crisis.The UN appealed for more than $56m for food security. I have been told that less than 50 percent of that was provided by donor countries.
Political issues
But that's not the only problem. Nine months ago, Haiti's new President Jovenel Moise took office, with the promise to increase support to the country's agricultural sectors.Farmers denounce that only 6.9 percent of next year's budget has been assigned to assist communities in desperate need of help. Moise has also raised taxes and that's why demonstrations have been ongoing in the capital for months.The president was elected in an electoral process in which only 20 percent of the population voted."Moise has very little support. The only ones that are keeping him in power are the United States, France and the international community," a source told me in Port-au-Prince.And the budget?"It's been designed to benefit the elite and to continue strangling the poor," said economist Camille Charlemers."It is what keeps us dependent on foreign aid. Without food production, Haiti needs to import almost everything."And of course there is massive corruption. A recent investigation showed how politicians, including the presidents and prime ministers, allegedly embezzled around $2bn from a Petrocaribe deal with Venezuela.Haiti is currently paying off that debt while millions are going hungry.Some historians have said that the country has been condemned since it was born, adding that the first black republic was a bad example. They say that 'slaves' were not supposed to have a nation and that's why a brutal embargo was imposed by France, Spain, the US and the UK.Over 200 years later, Haiti continues to struggle, a victim of the ruling elites that profit from the enormous poverty rates in the country, and of an international community that, for whatever reason, continues to fail.By: Teresa Bo for Aljazeera.com | November 28, 2017
Trump Administration Ends Temporary Protection for Haitians
Haitians with what is known as Temporary Protected Status will be expected to leave the United States by July 2019 or face deportation.
The decision set off immediate dismay among Haitian communities in South Florida, New York and beyond, and was a signal to other foreigners with temporary protections that they, too, could soon be asked to leave.
About 320,000 people now benefit from the Temporary Protected Status program, which was signed into law by President George Bush in 1990, and the decision on Monday followed another one last month that ended protections for 2,500 Nicaraguans.
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is still struggling to recover from the earthquake and relies heavily on money its expatriates send to relatives back home. The Haitian government had asked the Trump administration to extend the protected status.
“I received a shock right now,” Gerald Michaud, 45, a Haitian who lives in Brooklyn, said when he heard the news. He has been working at La Guardia Airport as a wheelchair attendant, sending money to family and friends back home. He said he feared for his welfare and safety back in Haiti now that his permission to remain in the United States was ending.
“The situation is not good in my country,” he said. “I don’t know where I am able to go.”
Haitians are the second-largest group of foreigners with temporary status. The protection is extended to people already in the United States who have come from countries crippled by natural disasters or armed conflict that prevents their citizens from returning or prevents their country from adequately receiving them. The government periodically reviews each group’s status and decides whether to continue the protections.
The Obama administration renewed the protections for Haitians several times, after determining that conditions in Haiti remained precarious. But the Trump administration, which has sought greater controls on immigration, has said that the program, which was intended to provide only temporary relief, has turned into a permanent benefit for tens of thousands of people.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that after meeting with Haitian government officials and Haitian communities in the United States, it had decided to let the protections end.
“Since the 2010 earthquake, the number of displaced people in Haiti has decreased by 97 percent,” the statement said. “Significant steps have been taken to improve the stability and quality of life for Haitian citizens, and Haiti is able to safely receive traditional levels of returned citizens.”
The protection for Haitians was most recently extended in May, by John F. Kelly, the Homeland Security secretary at the time. He allowed only a six-month extension, a shorter one than is typical, saying that the Haitians “need to start thinking about returning.”
The decision on Monday by Elaine Duke, the acting secretary, set a termination date of July 2019 to give people time to make arrangements to leave.
The largest group of Temporary Protected Status beneficiaries, nearly 200,000 people, are from El Salvador. The Department of Homeland Security is scheduled to announce next month whether it will rescind or renew protection for that country, which is plagued with gang violence and high unemployment. The protection applies to Salvadorans who were in the United States without permission on Feb. 13, 2001, and was granted after deadly earthquakes in their home country.
Though Ms. Duke ended protections for Nicaraguans last month, she continued, at least for now, protections for Hondurans despite pressure from Mr. Kelly, now President Trump’s chief of staff, to end them.
Others who now benefit include people from Nepal, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. In 2016, the Obama administration decided to end temporary protection for citizens from three West African countries that had been devastated by the Ebola virus several years ago.
The United States offered the protection to Haitians after the earthquake in January 2010 that killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced more than a million and led to a cholera outbreak. Haitians who entered the United States within a year of the disaster qualified for the status.
A variety of American groups, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the United States Chamber of Commerce and immigrant advocacy organizations had urged the Trump administration to extend the protections again. On Monday, Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, called the decision “unconscionable.”
“There is no reason to send 60,000 Haitians back to a country that cannot provide for them,” he wrote on Twitter. “I am strongly urging the administration to reconsider.”
There is no reason to send 60,000 Haitians back to a country that cannot provide for them. This decision today by DHS is unconscionable. And I am strongly urging the administration to reconsider. Ultimately, we need a permanent legislative solution. https://t.co/Ft0bE0itf6— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) Nov. 21, 2017
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican congresswoman from South Florida, said on Twitter that she had traveled to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 and after Hurricane Matthew in 2015. “So I can personally attest that Haiti is not prepared to take back nearly 60,000 TPS recipients under these difficult and harsh conditions,” she said.
I travelled to #Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 and after hurricane Matthew in 2016. So I can personally attest that #Haiti is not prepared to take back nearly 60,000 #TPS recipients under these difficult and harsh conditions.— Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (@RosLehtinen) Nov. 21, 2017
Those with temporary protection constitute about half of the estimated 110,000 Haitians living in the United States without permanent permission, according to the Pew Research Center. Since Mr. Kelly signaled that Haiti might lose its special designation, thousands of Haitians have crossed the border between the United States and Canada to apply for asylum in Quebec.
Nearly 30,000 children have been born in the United States to Haitians with protected status. Those children are citizens and entitled to stay. Some of their parents may seek to avoid deportation by claiming it would cause extreme hardship to a United States-born child, but that option is limited.
Most will soon have to make a wrenching decision: take their children back to Haiti; leave them with relatives or guardians in the United States; or remain in the country illegally and risk arrest and deportation.
Mark Silverman, an attorney and director of policy at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco, said that if they are arrested, they would be entitled to deportation hearings. And contesting their cases “gives them at least seven to 10 years,” he said, because of the long backlogs in the immigration courts.
The decision is sure to be felt in Haiti, where remittances from the Haitian diaspora totaled $2.36 billion in 2016, an increase of 7 percent over the previous year, according to the World Bank. That money represented more than one-fourth of the country’s national income.
But Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies for restrictions on immigration, said the cancellation of temporary protections for Haitians was “long overdue.”
“The notion that this would be reflexively renewed again and again is a corruption of the entire concept,” said Mr. Stein, adding, “it’s not a refugee program or an immigration program.”
“It’s supposed to be reviewed and it’s supposed to be temporary,” he said.
One of the younger beneficiaries of the program, Peterson Exais, barely survived the earthquake. He arrived in the United States when he was 9 years old to receive emergency medical care after surviving for days under the rubble. He endured more than a dozen surgeries and has become a promising dancer at a magnet school in Miami.
Now 17 years old, he dreams of pursuing studies at the Juilliard School.
“This is very devastating for me,” he said on Monday. “I might not be able to give all that I could give back if I went back to Haiti.”
By: Mariam Jordan for Nytimes.com | November 20,2017
Rally Supports Haitian Immigrants With Temporary Protected Status
BOSTON (CBS) — A rally in Mattapan on Sunday demonstrated support for the local Haitian community as they wait for the Trump administration to decide if they will be deported.
The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that allows about 5,000 Haitian locally, and 58,000 nationwide to remain in the country. Overall, 320,000 people from ten different countries live in the United States because of TPS.
A rally in Mattahan to support Haitian who might lose their temporary protected status (WBZ-TV)
President Donald Trump has until November 6 to extend the status to citizens of Nicaragua and Honduras. The deadline for Haitians is November. 23.“I’m a student. I’m graduating in about six months. And getting deported would actually stop me from getting my Bachelor’s degree as an accountant so its a whole lot of things we would be deprived of after we’ve worked so hard to accomplish them,” said Marvens Leconte, who was at the rally.
Marvens Leconte (WBZ-TV)
The program was designed for immigrants from countries where natural disasters, war, or other factors make returning unsafe.Without the extension, those residents would have to leave by January.The State Department says conditions in their homeland has improved enough for them to return.Many at the rally said Haiti is still recovering from an earthquake, a hurricane, and a cholera epidemic.“It won’t be safe for us to send 58,000 people back to Haiti right now with everything that is going on so we want to make our voices heard to say that those people deserve an extension because it will take time for Haiti to rebuild,” explained Geralde Gabeau, a rally organizer.The Haitian community is hoping for an 18-month delay.By: CBS Boston | November 5, 2017
Rochester Family Torn Apart After Dad Deported
Reginald Castel was deported last Tuesday. The United States government flew him to Haiti in shackles, leaving him on an island he had not seen since he was 8 years old. He does not speak the language of his native country. When the plane landed, he knew no one there.
Castel, 44, went to Gates-Chili High School, sold cars for Vision Hyundai and lived with his family on Bay Street. His sole memory of Haiti was of the house with a metal roof where he lived as a boy. He was in despair as he flew to the island, handcuffed with 12 other Haitians and 49 men from the Dominican Republic.
“I was scared to death,” he said. “I am on the plane just praying to God.”
The plane landed in Haiti’s capital, Port au Prince. The deportees were handed over to Haitian officials who were friendly, at first. When the American officials left, deportees were told to hand over any money in their pockets if they wanted to call someone to pick them up. If no one came, they would be taken to prison.
Castel only had 8 cents, but he was allowed to call his mother in Greece. She had been frantically trying to find a relative or friend to go and get him. She told him that someone had managed to track down his estranged father, whom he had not seen or spoken to since he left Haiti at age 8.
It was his father who arrived to pick him up. “I did not even recognize the man,” Castel said. “One of the officials told me it was my father.”
They hugged each other. His father doesn’t speak English so they were unable to communicate much. Castel said his father pointed to his heart to express love. He pointed to his head to say don’t stress and don’t worry. “He said ‘it has been a long time,’” said Castel. “I understood that.”
They left the facility with Castel’s one bag. It contained the clothes he was wearing when immigration officials took him into custody on Aug. 10, a pack of oatmeal, some legal papers and a 30-day supply of insulin to treat his severe diabetes.
Until Aug. 10, Castel was among more than 900,000 immigrants in the United States living under final orders of removal, or deportation, that had not been enforced. Deportation officials generally focused on people considered to be a threat to national security.
“They didn’t make me a priority under George Bush or Obama,” Castel said, by phone, from a home of his father’s friend in Port au Prince. Under the Trump administration, things have changed.
“With the executive order from President Trump, everybody with a removal order is at risk,” said Wedade Abdallah, program director for immigration for Legal Aid Society of Rochester.
Castel was subject to deportation because he pled guilty to a felony in 1999, after a dispute with his friend Reginald McQueen turned violent. Castel said that McQueen started chasing him with a knife and he ran to his truck to get a gun. “I defended myself,” he said. “I shot Reginald.”
At the time, Castel was a permanent resident with a green card, having come to the United States with his mother at age 8. He was eligible for citizenship, but hadn’t filled out the paperwork. His public defender advised him to plead guilty to assault to avoid risking the lengthy prison sentence that could result from being found guilty in a trial.
The lawyer did not tell him that a guilty plea, and his lack of citizenship, would make him eligible for deportation. Castel served six years in jail. When he was released, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security picked him up and held him in a detention center for 18 months as he appealed his deportation order.He was granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture act because a judge ruled that his lack of ties in Haiti, combined with his need for daily insulin would likely cause him to die in the impoverished country. He was released in 2007 under an order of supervision.The federal government appealed this deferral and won, reinstating the deportation order against him. In 2011, Castel lost his final appeal. But he was not deported.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave him permission to work legally and required him to check in periodically. Castel built a career, got married, stayed out of legal trouble and never missed a check-in appointment, including one in Batavia on Aug. 10. His wife Lashanda waited for him outside as he went into the meeting. When she saw him next, he was handcuffed in the back of a patrol car. He was not allowed to get out of the car to give her a hug goodbye.
Every time she saw him after that was through glass at immigration detention centers.
“How do they tear a family apart and think nothing of it?” Lashanda Castel asked. “Where is the humanity in this?”
The laws that led to Castel’s deportation have long been on the books. President Donald Trump is just enforcing them, as promised in his campaign. Five days after his inauguration, Trump issued executive orders directing executive departments and agencies "to employ all lawful means to enforce the immigration laws of the United States.”
He criticized previous administrations for failing to remove people with deportation orders. “We cannot faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States if we exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement,” the president wrote.
In the past undocumented immigrants who had long histories of obeying the law and living quiet lives were not deportation priorities. Trump's executive orders have changed things, said Wedade Abdallah, program director for immigration for the Legal Aid Society of Rochester. “We are seeing a more unpredictable type of enforcement,” she said. "It could be anybody (with a final removal order) at this point." She said she would encourage any immigrant who has a final order of removal to speak to an immigration attorney.
“Make America great,” Lashanda Castel said, with bitterness. “Let’s get the immigrants out of here.” She believes the government ought to make allowances for people like her husband, who has turned his life around and stayed out of trouble for more than a decade.
Reginald McQueen, the man shot by Castel in 1999, agrees. He made a statement in support of Castel that appears in a petition asking Gov. Andrew Cuomo to pardon Castel for his crime. Such a pardon would make it possible to reinstate his green card. “An unfortunate incident occurred that caused me harm and got Reggie arrested. However, it was the result of a personal problem between us and we have become friends again,” McQueen wrote, adding that he does not want to see Castel deported. ”I am satisfied that he has paid his debt to society and to me and I don’t think he should be punished any more for what he did. I have my health back and my life back and I would like Reggie to have his life back, too.”
Castel’s life is now spent in a spare room in the home of his father’s friend, a man who speaks a bit of English. Electricity comes and goes, sometimes for days. Clean drinking water is hard to come by. It is hot. Castel has been warned not to go out alone. His lack of language skills makes him an obvious outsider and easy target for desperate criminals found in a country where people must survive on an average of $2.25 a day.
So he sits in the house, waiting for his father to get out of work. He has time to wonder about another deportee he met on the plane who also had no connections in Haiti because he had grown up in Bermuda. “I am pretty sure he ended up in prison,” he said. He wonders what would have become of him if his father hadn’t been found. And, most painfully, he misses his family. He and his wife have a blended family of seven children. His youngest child, a daughter, has taken the situation very hard. There has not been a time they’ve spoken on the phone that she was not in tears. “They took someone who is loved,” said his wife.
She also cries. But she knows that tears won't help her husband return to the United States. If getting him home proves impossible in the short term, she must find a way to get him a stable supply of insulin. Castel suffers with Type 1 diabetes that his physician assistant at Anthony Jordan Health Center called “severe, chronic and incurable.” It requires daily insulin shots, which are extremely difficult to get in Haiti. Castel's plans to visit the Diabetes Association in Port au Prince have been disrupted by unrest and violence on the streets.
Lashanda Castel is trying to navigate the permits, licenses and fees that would allow her to ship insulin to Haiti. She has applied for her passport so she can visit her husband, though she is concerned about U.S. State Department warnings about the risks of traveling to Haiti, including violent crime, instability and lack of adequate medical facilities.
She is buoyed by a group of local supporters including Rochester City School Board President Van White, who is also an attorney and volunteered to submit Castel's petition for the governor’s pardon. The petition includes statements of support from his boss at Vision Hyundai, the bishop of his church and many friends and family members. Rochester City School Board member Mary Adams continues to rally community activists to fight for his cause and to lobby Gov. Cuomo to pardon him quickly.
Adams was among the people who went to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility to try to block the bus when Castel was being taken away for deportation. They could not see him through the tinted windows of the bus, but he saw them standing, praying and protesting his deportation. “I felt hopeful,” he said. “I had people in my corner.”
Those people will host an “Updates and Organizing to Support Reggie Castel and Family” meeting at 6 p.m. Sunday at the Freedom School, 630 N. Goodman Street. All are welcome, said Adams, to join the effort to bring Castel home.
For now, he remains in Port au Prince. He has learned how to say “please,” “thank you,” “I’m hungry,” and “water” in Kreyol. His hope for a return to Bay Street remains. His insulin is running out.
By: Erica Bryant | September 29, 2017
Uncertain Future For Haitian Immigrants
Demonstrators demand continued protection for Haitians who fled crises that still afflict the nationHolden Pierre, a 17-year-old Haitian immigrant, has spent the last ten years of his life growing up America. This January, he may be required to return to a country he has not lived in since he was 7—a country that is still struggling to recover from severe environmental and health crises.Over the course of his decade in the U.S.—more than half his life—Pierre has worked in community organizations such as the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition, earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from UMass-Boston, and now is employed at an organization focused on growing small businesses in low- and moderate-income communities.Pierre is one of about 58,000 Haitians who are living, working and studying in the U.S. under a program called Temporary Protected Status. Haitians beneficiaries of that protected status will see it expire on Jan. 22, 2018, unless the Trump administration moves to extend the program, something John Kelly, then-Secretary of Homeland Security, said in May is not guaranteed.Temporary Protected Status Temporary Protected Status allows immigrants meeting certain requirements to live and work in the U.S. if they cannot do so safely in their originating country due to conditions such as a civil war, epidemic or environmental disaster. While TPS is not a path to permanent residency, recipients may apply for such status while they hold this protection. In 2010, TPS was extended to Haitians following a devastating earthquake. To qualify, recipients had to demonstrate they had continually lived in the U.S. since January 2011 and continually been physically present since July 2011. The temporary status was extended since as further disasters hit the country. U.N. troops sparked a cholera outbreak that continues to cause fatalities today, and several hurricanes have taken a toll.State House rally On Wednesday last week, Haitian-Americans United, Inc. and the Institute of Justice & Democracy in Haiti held a rally on the State House steps, with a speaker list that included Pierre. Many speakers called for a deeper reworking of the immigration system to extend permanent residency to Haitians protect by TPS, noting that seven years is long enough that many have families and businesses here and are entrenched in their communities.“They are part of our society,” Congresswoman Katherine Clark said at the rally. “Now is not the time to uproot families, business owners and people who contribute to our economy.”Deportation would mean economic damage as well as the splintering of families, many said.“[TPS means we can] serve the communities we now call home,” Pierre said. “[Without it we] leave behind younger siblings who then are forced to make tough decisions like dropping out of school to support their families.”Roxana Rivera, vice president of SEIU 32BJ, said TPS recipients liable to be deported in January are good actors, who have followed the rules, including paying taxes and any fees asked of them and submitting to any requested background checks.A number of local elected officials support prolonging TPS, including Rep. Russell Holmes and City Councilor and mayoral contender Tito Jackson, who both spoke at the rally. In May, Mayor Martin Walsh urged federal officials to extend protected status for Haitians. In his letter, he noted that families would be split as deported parents are likely to leave behind U.S.-born children rather than bring them to nation already struggling to meet its residents’ basic needs.Following the rally, many attendees turned out to Gov. Charlie Baker’s office to deliver a message urging him to advocate for renewal of TPS for Haiti.Renewal? Several speakers also said that Haiti is still plagued by the kinds of issues that had led to the granting and repeated extensions of TPS. Brian Concannon Jr., executive director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, said Haiti’s cholera epidemic continues to be among the worst in modern times, killing about 1,000 people per month, and that hurricane-related rains are expected to exacerbate the disease’s spread.Rally organizers stated on their Facebook event page that Haiti has yet to fully recover from the 2010 earthquake, cholera epidemic or effects of last year’s Hurricane Matthew or this month’s Hurricane Irma, and cannot safely incorporate 50,000 more residents.In May 2017, Kelly extended Haitian TPS for six months, advising recipients to be prepared to return. He said Haiti demonstrated improved conditions, citing that many of the camps serving those displaced by the earthquake had closed, the Haitian government had declared plans to rebuild the president’s residence and the U.N. had withdrawn its stabilization mission. He said at the time that he expected the six months would allow TPS recipients and the Haitian government to prepare for repatriation.According to Haitian-Americans United, Inc., the Trump administration is expected to decide by Oct. 23 whether to extend TPS for Haitians past the Jan. 22, 2018 expiration date. TPS recipients from other countries such as El Salvador and Honduras also faced deadlines on their status.
By: Jule Pattison-Gordon | September 28, 2017
'Anywhere But Haiti': Asylum Seeker Retraces His 15,000-km Odyssey To Canada
Travelling by boat, bus and on foot, treacherous journey from Brazil ends at Roxham Road, Que.When Pierre left Cap-Haïtien for South America, he never imagined he'd wind up in the woods of upstate New York.But nine years and 10 countries later, he stepped into Canada and was arrested by the RCMP.He had survived a two-and-a-half-month, 15,000-kilometre odyssey from Brazil to Roxham Road with his wife and seven-year-old son, through some of the most dangerous territory in the Americas.By plane, by boat, by bus, taxi or on foot, the destination was always the same: "Anywhere but Haiti."Pierre is not his real name. CBC News has agreed to protect the identities of the 30-year-old Haitian and his family to prevent any potential impact on their asylum claim in Canada.
Building a life in Chavez's Venezuela
A self-described socialist, Pierre left Haiti in 2008 to study in Venezuela. He made a new life for himself in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, where he worked as a warehouse manager.Pierre left Haiti to study music in Venezuela in 2008, later studying accounting and administration. (submitted by Pierre)When the revolutionary president died in 2013, Pierre went south to Manaus in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.But work dried up, so in 2016 he decided to head north to "conquer the American dream."It's a path countless others have taken — a backwoods channel for waves of undocumented Latin Americans, Africans, South Asians, Haitians and Cubans seeking a better future.It's also a route fraught with exhaustion, fear, robbery, rape and death.
Desperate journey through the Darien Gap
With his wife and child, Pierre set out on June 16, 2016, crossing into Venezuela from Brazil."It wasn't easy to get into Colombia, but with a lot of tenacity we managed," he said.From there the family boarded a bus to the Colombian port town of Turbo, where the South American stretch of the Pan-American Highway ends.There they joined a group of 100 or so other migrants - Cubans, Africans and other Haitians ready to make the same desperate journey."From Turbo, we took a little boat," Pierre recalls. "Many people died because some boats sank. But we arrived at the entrance to the Darien Gap."The Darien Gap is a lush rainforest on the border of Colombia and Panama, thus named because it's a break in the Pan-American highway.Migrants must travel through the untamed wilderness on foot.
"Crossing the Darien Gap was a very cruel experience," says Pierre. "I spent six days in the mountains with no food and no water.""So as not to get dehydrated, my family and I had to drink our own urine."The migrants also had to avoid snakes and other wild animals lurking in the dense forest."Many people died," Pierre says. "But we had to go on because otherwise, we'd die too. Whenever my son thinks about it, he cries."This video was taken by other Haitian migrants while crossing the Darien Gap.
Smuggled across Nicaraguan border
After 15 days in Panama and a bus ride to Costa Rica, authorities stopped them at the Nicaraguan border."It was really tough to get across," says Pierre."We had no papers."
Stuck at the border and living in tents, Pierre paid smugglers nearly $3,000 US to get him and his family into Nicaragua.
Others were not so lucky."Some were ripped off and never did get across," he says. "There were many bandits who raped people when they were going through the forests."Once in Nicaragua those that made it took a bus through Honduras and Guatemala to Mexico.Pierre says Mexican authorities gave them passage on the condition they move on to the USA.But arriving at the American border in Tijuana, Pierre was detained and spent nine days in lockup.Upon release, he moved his family to Florida.
Taste of the American dream
Pierre got a work permit while his U.S. asylum claim was processed, working as a check-in manager at the Orlando airport and at Disney World."I worked and waited for the [asylum] process to run its course," Pierre says. "But when Donald Trump came to power things got complicated."He was worried that without permanent status, he and his family could be deported at any time.Then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted his support for refugees during Trump's efforts to enact a travel ban from Muslim-majority countries, and Pierre turned his eyes northward.
To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada— @JustinTrudeau
"When [Trudeau] said, 'Canada's ready to welcome refugees,' I said, 'Well, if that's the case, I'll come to Canada,' because I'm looking for a better life."So the family flew to Plattsburgh, N.Y., and boarded a bus to the border, crossing into Canada illegally at Roxham Road and making an asylum claim."When [Trudeau] said, 'Canada's ready to welcome refugees,' I said, 'Well, if that's the case, I'll come to Canada,' because I'm looking for a better life."- Haitian asylum seeker Pierre, 29They spent 24 hours in a temporary camp near the border, then two weeks living in the shelter set up at Montreal's Olympic Stadium.The family now has an apartment, and Pierre is trying to get a work permit while he awaits his Immigration and Refugee Board hearing.
Accusations, beatings and stabbings back home
In his asylum claim, Pierre says he can't go back to Haiti because his family is being targeted by a gang of street criminals.
He says the trouble started in 2009 when a woman in his neighbourhood accused his father of witchcraft and threatened to have a gang attack him with machetes.Pierre says his father fled but the gang beat up his mother. He has copies of statements to the local police to help prove his story and a picture of his mother after the beating.He claims the same group of thugs attacked him for his political views in 2010 on a visit home, accusing him of trying to organize an uprising against the government.Then just this year, Pierre says his brother was stabbed by the gang and had to move his family to another part of the country."It's a country with no justice," Pierre says. "If I go back there they'll kill me."
'Such a cruel journey'
Sitting in a coffee shop near Jarry Park in Montreal's Villeray neighbourhood, Pierre sketches out a drawing of his long journey on the back of one the myriad documents and forms that make up his refugee case file.The map fills the page. His home country is conspicuously absent.Pierre sketches his journey from Brazil to Roxham Road."We left the U.S. because we were scared they'd deport us to Haiti," he says."In Haiti most people are unemployed. It's miserable. There are kidnappings all the time."Pierre hopes the Canadian government will give extra consideration to those like him who have come so far."Such a cruel journey," he says. "It was a very hard road to get here."By: Simon Nakonechny | September 26, 2017
‘How Would I Survive Going Back There?’
The woman wearing a mint-green dress with tiny pink flowers is trying not to cry.She is explaining that she has Temporary Protected Status, which was granted to 58,000 Haitians after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country. She had been living in the United States for more than a decade when the quake struck, but found herself a beneficiary of the program that allowed Haitians to stay.So every 18 months, she renewed her status without much thought. Then came May, and an announcement from then-Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly. He told Haitian TPS holders that the program may soon come to an end. That they would be given a six-month extension, but they should prepare to leave the United States and return to Haiti by January 2018.His reasoning: Things were improving in Haiti since the quake killed more than 230,000 people and did an estimated $14 billion in damage to buildings and roads.Critics called the decision shortsighted. The effects of the earthquake are still visible. Many people still reside in tents and makeshift homes. A cholera outbreak followed in 2010, infecting at least 770,000 people and killing more than 9,200. And on Saturday, Hurricane Irma brought more heartache to the already devastated Caribbean island nation as reports of flooding began to surface.But for the woman in the mint-green dress, struggling not to cry, her reasons for wanting to stay are much more personal.The Washington area, where she has lived for more than two decades, is her home — and home to an estimated 800 Haitians with TPS. Her husband and 2-year-old daughter are there. Her job as a nurse is there. And her church, with its majority Haitian congregation, is there. So despite pleas from family and friends that she should follow the exodus of Haitians afraid of a return to Haiti and instead head to Canada, she will not.“I think it’s lack of faith for me to get up and leave,” said the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared she would become an easy target for deportation. “I have two sisters and a brother in Montreal. They ask me to come every time. ‘People are coming,’ they say. I say, ‘Is it easy to pack up and come?’ It is not. I don’t want to hear people tell me that kind of stuff.”
‘Deep Roots in the Community’
An estimated 11 million people live in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. A Category 5 hurricane like Irma could cause flooded roads and mudslides, which could destroy houses built on hillsides — a repeat of the devastation caused by the earthquake in 2010 and when Hurricane Matthew hit the country in October 2016.It is for that reason that many Haitians with TPS in the United States say returning to Haiti is not an option. In August, Canadian officials reported a surge in Haitians crossing the border from the United States. According to the Quebec immigration ministry, as many as 150 Haitian asylum seekers are arriving in Canada each day after making border crossings from New York into Quebec. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., about 700 Haitians were waiting to be processed for claims of asylum from the United States this year.Canadian soldiers are building tent villages near U.S. borders to house Haitian asylum seekers. Olympic Stadium in Montreal is being used to house refugees, the CBC reported.The growing panic can be seen across the country. Haitian radio stations and other media outlets talk about the issue almost nonstop. Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Haitian Women of Miami, said that more than 32,000 Haitians with temporary status live in Florida. Many have been living in the United States for up to 20 years.“We are talking about people who have deep roots in the community,” Bastien said. “These are people who own homes, who have reached the American Dream to own a home, and started business. Eighty-five percent of them are working.”“I receive calls every day,” Bastien added. “ ‘Marleine, what should I do? Should I put my house to sale? Do I take my children to a country still reeling under remnants of an earthquake, a country where the entire south peninsula has been destroyed? Where people are dealing with food scarcity because Hurricane Matthew destroyed crops?’ ”“The heart-wrenching questions the families are asking are difficult to answer,” she said. “How do you tell a parent what to do with U.S.-born children? How do you answer a mom sitting in front of you with tears in their eyes?”Jean St. Ulmé, senior pastor at Eglise Baptiste Du Calvaire in Adelphi, Md., said he is also dealing with similar questions.“It is a sad situation. They don’t know what will happen,” St. Ulmé said. “ They don’t have anything in Haiti. They come here for a better life. They are afraid to go back.”
Health Concerns
The woman in the mint-green dress is a member of St. Ulmé’s congregation. She and her husband, who is also in the country on temporary status, pray every morning before the sun comes up and again at night before midnight. It is the same prayer: That the U.S. government will not return to Haiti the more than 58,000 Haitians living here.She was 18 when she left Haiti in 1995 on a visitor’s visa. “Since then, I’ve never been back. I have no house there,” said the woman, who is now 40. “I wouldn’t know how to live there. How would I survive going back there?”She rubs her swollen belly. Her second child is due in three weeks.Now she can no longer hold back her tears.“My child is a U.S. citizen,” she says. “Would you take my child from me? Would you send me back and take my child? What would she become? Would you break a family?”The health-care system in Haiti is terrible, she says. Patients wait on hospital beds with no sheets, clutching brown paper bags of medicine they brought with them, hoping doctors not stopped by strikes will see them. In Haiti, she said, “You call 911, the ambulance has no gas to come help you. There is no security. There is no place to render justice.”Rony Ponthieux doesn’t want to go to Canada either, but the prospect of returning to Haiti is not one he can see. He has lived in the United States since 1999, and he and his wife were granted TPS after the 2010 earthquake.
While here, he has gone to school and become a registered nurse. Since 2015, he has worked at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.“I have two children born here,” Ponthieux said. “The eldest son is 16, going on 17. I have a girl who . . . spoke at Washington in Congress. She was giving some speeches. She is gifted. She just turned 10. She was champion spelling bee for her school.”Moving to Canada would be a last option. “I heard the news. I see the borders. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”On the other hand: “If I go to Haiti, I would struggle to live. To take care of children will be hard. If I leave children here, it will be family separation. It is not good to leave children here.”But, he added, “Imagine children born here and go to a place with no pure water. No shelter. No food. No house in Haiti. It would be a bad situation.”
Union Urges Trump to Save Immigrants With Temporary Protections
A Las Vegas union is hoping to save thousands of immigrants from deportation Tuesday by urging President Donald Trump to extend their protected status.The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program allows foreign nationals to stay in the country legally if they are unable to return to their home country safely. The protected status for 320,000 immigrants is set to expire at the end of this year. The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 believes the deadline should be extended.Local 226 held a press conference to make its case for why the protection should be extended. The union argues that it wouldn’t be right to force immigrants out after they have spent years building lives in the U.S. The union is urging the president and local lawmakers to extend the program until a pathway to citizenship can be implemented.“The Culinary Union has been on the front line fight for these immigrants,” Local 226 treasury secretary Geoconda Argüello-Kline said during the press conference. “They live here; they pay their taxes; they work really hard. They want to be citizens of this country.”House Reps. Jacky Rosen and Ruben Kihuen joined the press conference in support of the union push. Both representatives are Democrats from the state of Nevada. They urged Republican Sen. Dean Heller to also support the extension with so many participants in their state.Local 226 notes that many of the immigrants at risk have been here for almost three decades. They have worked in the country and become a part of their community. They have raised children who only know how to be Americans. Local 226 is working alongside its national affiliate, Unite Here, to bring attention to the issue.The TPS program currently includes immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Unite Here has specifically focused on the 50,000 Haitians that have a protected status. The union argued those immigrants still don’t have a safe home to go back to.Unite Here organized protests and launched a petition to bring national attention to the issue. The union also joined forces with other advocates like the Haitian Women of Miami and the Florida Immigrant Coalition. The union has argued that the statutes should be extended until pathways to citizenship are developed for them.The Trump administration announced May 22 that the program would be extended for the Haitians. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the six-month extension just a day before it was set to expire. The Haitians have lived in the country since their homeland was hit by an earthquake seven years ago.“After careful review of the current conditions in Haiti and conversations with the Haitian government, I have decided to extend the designation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status for a limited period of six-months,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in a statement. “Haiti has made progress across several fronts since the devastating earthquake in 2010.”Unite Here and other critics expressed dissatisfaction with the extension when it was announced. The union argues that the ideal would be to extend the program until the government develops pathways so they can stay permanently. The union says they have been here too long to send them back now.Trump has promised to better enforce immigration law, and pursue policies that protect domestic workers from unfair foreign competition. The administration has said it will prioritize criminal aliens for deportation, but critics have expressed concern the administration will pursue mass deportation, which would include illegal immigrants that are otherwise acting lawfully.Unite Here represents 270,000 members across the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries. The union, in general, has been a vocal supporter of a more open immigration system.By: Connor D. Wolf | August 22, 2017
‘Perfect storm’ holding up Hamilton man’s adoption of Haitian orphan
Canadian couple has been caring for girl since shortly after mother’s death in 2009
Vaden Earle first met Mari-Thérèse Pierre, a Haitian refugee, in the Dominican Republic in 2005 when he was on a humanitarian mission with a youth group he founded in Canada.
The Hamilton man would see the woman with her newborn child, Widlene, scavenging for food around a giant dump site near Puerto Plata and would often chat with her.One day in 2009, the mother and girl disappeared, and he learned that Pierre had died and the child was sent back to Haiti to live with a relative. Worried about the well-being of the girl, Earle and his wife set out to find her. They eventually tracked her down in Haiti and have been her primary care providers ever since.Eight years after Earle and his wife initiated Widlene's adoption — and after a series of mishaps — the now 12-year-old is stranded and stateless in the Dominican Republic, waiting to come to Canada with her adoptive parents. To do that, the couple is asking for co-operation from immigration officials."It has been a nightmare in a perfect storm. It's just unbelievable," said Earle, 42, who moved to the Caribbean country in 2009 to look after Widlene full-time, while his wife, Christl, travels monthly from Toronto to see her family.Earle, who quit his position as CEO of the youth group Live Different and now runs a car rental business and café in Puerto Plata, said he and his wife were drawn to Widlene partly by their belief in empowering youth for social change."Widlene just finished Grade 6 (at a private school). She is an avid soccer player and loves watching hockey. She is a big Edmonton Oilers fan," said Earle. "She wants to become a pediatrician and work in developing countries."It's a future that would not have been imaginable when Earle first found Widlene in Gonaïves, in northern Haiti, where she was on the verge of being sold as a child domestic worker in 2009.He and his wife, who have no children of their own, applied to Haitian authorities for Widlene's guardianship in order to bring the girl home to formalize the adoption in Canada. They completed a government assessment in Ontario of their skills and talents as potential parents.Then the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince in January 2010, causing widespread devastation — and destroying all the documents necessary for Widlene's adoption, including proof of her mother's death and the signed consent of her biological father, whose whereabouts are still unknown.The couple then attempted to carry out the adoption in Haiti, but in 2013, the Haitian government suddenly put a moratorium on international adoptions.In 2015 the family encountered yet another hurdle when a new law was enacted that revoked Haitian citizenship for anyone born outside Haiti, even to Haitian parents.Earle said Widlene subsequently had her Haitian passport and citizenship stripped, and became stateless in the Dominican Republic, because that country does not grant citizenship by birth on its soil."As a Haitian, she is living in a country where Haitians are not welcomed and are targets for exploitation, racism and deportation," said Earle. "As a Dominican-born child, Haiti refuses to recognize her as a citizen. Today, we, as Canadian citizens, are effectively exiled from Canada by virtue of our decision to save the life of a child."Being stateless, Widlene does not have a valid travel document.The family's Toronto lawyer, Chantal Desloges, has asked immigration officials to issue a temporary resident permit to let Widlene into Canada so the couple can complete the adoption — and the immigration process — in this country.Immigration officials have yet to decide on the matter. They say they've been responding to correspondence from Earle since September 2016."We understand the rules are there, but this is a humanitarian case. We need the exceptional discretion applied in this case," said Desloges, adding that the permit, unlike a tourist visa, is designed for the entry of an otherwise inadmissible foreigner because of "compelling needs."Toronto StarBy Nicholas Keung | August 21, 2017
Haitian Immigrants With Temporary Status Await Trump’s Next Move
Jean Jubens Jeanty, a Haitian Uber driver who lives in Brooklyn, has his future mapped out. After completing a high school diploma program at Brooklyn College next month, he plans to start college next year. He would then seek further schooling to become a nurse or pediatrician. But the clock is ticking on his plans.Mr. Jeanty, 29, came to the United States from Port-au-Prince in September 2006 with his eldest brother and stayed after his tourist visa expired. He has what is known as temporary protected status, or T.P.S., which was granted to Haitians who were visiting the United States or living here illegally when a devastating earthquake struck their homeland in 2010. T.P.S. allows him and other Haitians to live and work legally in this country, until conditions in Haiti have improved enough to return home safely.Now, the Trump administration is monitoring earthquake recovery efforts to determine whether temporary protected status for Haitians should be terminated in January when its recent six-month extension ends. The Homeland Security secretary, John F. Kelly, said in a news release in May that Haiti has been making significant progress, advising T.P.S. holders to begin to “prepare for and arrange their departure” should the special designation end in January.That advice has left Haitian T.P.S. holders — as many as 58,000 in the United States, with 20,000 in New York — mired in fear. Some who have established lives here said they feared losing their dreams. Others who have lived in the United States for many years may find it difficult to adjust to life in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. And those with American-born children could be parted from them.“I basically grew up here,” said Bianca, 22, a senior at Queens College, part of the City University of New York, who asked to be identified by her middle name because of her uncertain immigration status. “It’s very nerve-racking in a way. It’s very unsettling to know that you’re here and you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, or what is going to happen in the next couple of months.”Bianca came to the country in 1998 with her mother and brother on a tourist visa, and they overstayed their time. Her father, who also has T.P.S., later joined them. She has two siblings, 14 and 18, who are United States citizens. Bianca, an aspiring educator, studies English literature and expects to graduate in December. At CUNY, the country’s largest urban public university system, there were 60 students with T.P.S. last school year, the university said.Congress created the T.P.S. program in 1990 to aid countries ravaged by war, natural disasters or catastrophic events that make it too dangerous for citizens to return. Their status is renewed periodically, and recipients have to keep their permits updated to avoid deportation, at a cost of $495. Under the Obama administration, Haiti’s T.P.S. permits were reviewed every 18 months, with the current extension ending today. In May, the Trump administration said the next extension would be for six months, ending on Jan. 22, 2018.The program was created to provide temporary aid, but some designations have stretched as long as two decades. Immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua have been allowed to stay in the United States since 1999, when Hurricane Mitch devastated their countries. The United States currently provides T.P.S. to more than 300,000 foreign nationals from 10 countries.Emmanuel Depas, a lawyer who is Haitain-American and assists T.P.S. recipients, said Haiti is far from ready to take its citizens back. Mr. Depas said the country’s dire condition had been exacerbated by a cholera outbreak caused by a United Nations peacekeeping force, which killed 10,000 and sickened nearly a million, and by Hurricane Matthew last year, the biggest storm to hit Haiti in 50 years.“Haiti just got a president in 2017,” Mr. Depas said, noting that the country had had months of political instability. “To say that the country is ready to take its people back is asinine.”Mr. Depas said some T.P.S. recipients have decided not to renew their status for fear of giving immigration authorities information that could locate them should the program end.But Ira Mehlman, a spokesman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports stricter immigration controls, said the decision on whether to extend the program should not center on subsequent misfortunes. Mr. Mehlman argued that T.P.S. was intended only to “give some people a ride out of the circumstances in their countries” temporarily.“At some point, we expect you to go home,” Mr. Mehlman added. “To simply say we are going to keep expanding it, then it’s no longer temporary. It’s a backdoor immigration system. There seem to be some expectations that the countries have to be a paradise before we send people back home.”Though the Trump administration has taken a hard line on illegal immigration, Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said “there’s still time and ability to influence” Mr. Trump’s decision. But the “pack your bag type of messaging immigrants are hearing from the federal government” is discouraging, she added. Ms. Agarwal said her office was assisting T.P.S. holders with legal support and urged them to prepare regardless of their expectations.Support for extending the program for Haitians crosses party lines: Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican and Trump ally, also wants to see their T.P.S. eligibility extended. Florida has a large Haitian population.Ending the program would deal a significant blow to a lifeline of Haiti’s economy: remittances. Haitians in the United States sent $1.3 billion back to the island in 2015, according to the Pew Research Center.As for Mr. Jeanty, he is hoping that immigration authorities will grant a longer extension in January. “A person like me who is working and paying taxes, going to school and have nothing on my record — why not keep me here?” he said. “I have nothing to go back to.”By Khorri Atkinson | July 21, 2017
Haitians who came after earthquake granted six-month extension
The Trump administration has granted a six-month extension to nearly 60,000 Haitians who were offered temporary protection in the US after a devastating earthquake in 2010.The extension will allow them to remain in the US until January 2018.But a DHS official said the agency was encouraging Haitians on the TPS scheme to "get their affairs in order".Immigration advocates have protested against deportations, saying conditions in Haiti remain too dangerous.The earthquake killed tens of thousands of Haitians and displaced more than one million, and the country has since been hit by a cholera epidemic.DHS officials who briefed reporters on the decision said only conditions seen as caused by the earthquake were taken into account in analysing Haiti's readiness to accept the TPS residents back.They said no decision had been made over whether the TPS status would be extended again in January 2018, but that the agency "highly encouraged all TPS recipients to handle their affairs as appropriate, including obtaining travel documents".There are roughly 58,700 Haitians living in the US on the TPS scheme, many in a large Haitian community in Florida, as well as New York and Massachusetts.They will be required to reapply for TPS status within 60 days of official notice from the DHS. No new Haitians will be allowed to join the scheme during the extension period."This is temporary status, it's not supposed to be permanent. It can't go on in perpetuity," an official said.Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in a statement: "This six-month extension should allow Haitian TPS recipients living in the United States time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States, and should also provide the Haitian government with the time it needs to prepare for the future repatriation of all current TPS recipients."The government has already sought to deport some Haitians who don't have TPS status, in line with part of a wider crackdown on illegal immigration.According to internal emails passed to the Associated Press earlier this month, immigration officials sought crime data on Haitians on the TPS scheme, as well as information about whether they were seeking benefits.The TPS scheme currently grants protections to nationals of 10 countries, including Sudan, Somalia, Syria, El Salvador, Nepal and Yemen. Source: BBC News, May 22, 2017