A handful of barely seaworthy vessels were intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard off the coast of Florida over the Thanksgiving holiday; 4 people were reported drowned and five others missing after one rescue on Nov. 20. By the tip of the weekend, the Coast Guard reported repatriating or diverting lots of of Haitian migrants who had been looking for to achieve the US.
They were the primary such interceptions at sea in weeks, but they may portend a wave of attempted crossings to the US now that fuel deliveries in Haiti have been restored. In September, a criminal gang coalition, often known as G9, seized the Varreux Fuel Terminal within the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, blocking fuel shipments and bringing the already embattled local economy to a standstill. The interruption in fuel deliveries also rendered asylum seekers, in addition to human traffickers, unable to launch from Haitian ports.
But G9 finally relinquished control of the terminal to Haitian National Police on Nov. 4, and tanker trucks were quickly making deliveries of gasoline and diesel fuel again.
Jean Denis Saint-Félix, S.J., the Jesuit regional superior in Haiti, confirmed by email that gas stations within the capital have reopened. “It is just not clear the way it really happened,” he said. “In response to many sources, some arrangements were made, as usual, between the federal government and the gangs.”
Although common people struggle to pay a fourfold leap in fuel prices, Father Saint-Felíx believes many are ready to depart. “The issue of insecurity is increasing,” he said. “Kidnapping and assassinations proceed to rise.
“Individuals are fishing for opportunities in order that they will flee from [Haiti],” Father Saint-Félix said. “That is the crisis inside the crisis—professionals, students and families are leaving the country.”
A ‘total breakdown’
Haitians have good reason to flee their homeland in its current state.
Jean Denis Saint-Félix, S.J.: “Individuals are fishing for opportunities in order that they will flee. That is the crisis inside the crisis—professionals, students and families are leaving the country.”
Bill Canny, the chief director of the U.S. bishops’ Department of Migration and Refugee Services, lived in Haiti for 4 years because the country director for Catholic Relief Services and has been repeatedly following conditions there. He has seen earthquakes and other natural disasters bedevil Haiti; he has experienced times within the recent past in Port-au-Prince when crime was ascendant and political chaos extreme. But he calls what he’s witnessing today a “total breakdown…that is the worst it’s ever been.”
“We all know the federal government is actually not functioning in Haiti lately,” he said, “These individuals are within the midst of incredible civil unrest. It’s dangerous. There are multiple gangs operating.”
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, told reporters on Nov. 3 that Haiti was experiencing the worst human rights and humanitarian conditions in a long time. “Individuals are being killed by firearms; they’re dying because they should not have access to protected drinking water, food, health care; women are being gang raped with impunity,” Mr. Türk said.
Cholera, first introduced by U.N. troops sent into Haiti within the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in 2010, has returned. Many slum dwellers, trapped by gang violence, are forced to make use of tainted water sources.
The cholera outbreak sweeping across Haiti is claiming a growing number of kids amid a surge in malnutrition, UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Fund, reported on Nov. 23. The deadly combination signifies that about 40 percent of cholera cases now involve children, with nine out of 10 cases reported in areas where individuals are ravenous. Cholera has killed greater than 240 people and sickened greater than 12,300 because the first deaths were announced in early October. In response to the United Nations, a record 4.7 million people in Haiti—nearly half of the population—face acute hunger.
Individuals who hope to flee Haiti’s cholera outbreak and life-threatening insecurity cannot wait for a more welcoming climate to emerge in the US.
Mr. Canny believes the humanitarian need is grave enough this time to transcend bipartisan squabbles in Congress.
“We’re committed to searching for nonpartisan solutions…to our immigrant issues,” he said. “I feel that at times immigrants are getting used as a political football…. We want to make certain we’re focused on these people as human beings who’ve the identical rights as all of us.”
He said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its domestic humanitarian arm, Catholic Charities USA, were standing by able to assist migrants on the Mexico border, where Haitian asylum seekers have been often turning up, and in resettlement offices across the country.
Due to the crisis conditions in Haiti, the United Nations has urged states receiving Haitian migrants and asylum seekers to not repatriate them. “Haiti is on the verge of an abyss,” Mr. Türk said. “On this context, it is obvious that the systematic violations of rights in Haiti don’t currently allow for the protected, dignified and sustainable return of Haitians to the country.”
Return to Guantánamo?
The timing for a mass migration event from Haiti couldn’t be worse, coming after a fractious midterm election in the US overloaded with negative messaging a few migrant “invasion.” But deteriorating conditions in Haiti weren’t synchronized to the U.S. political calendar.
Individuals who hope to flee Haiti’s cholera outbreak and life-threatening insecurity cannot wait for a more welcoming climate to emerge in the US. With gasoline and diesel flowing again, migrant advocates expect a latest flotilla of Haitians desperate to achieve the Florida coast or migrant trails in Mexico.
Media reports detailing contingency planning by the Biden administration suggest that third-party states within the Caribbean and the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, may once more be put to make use of as “lily pads” for Haitian asylum seekers intercepted at sea.
Due to the crisis conditions in Haiti, the United Nations has urged states receiving Haitian migrants and asylum seekers to not repatriate them. “Haiti is on the verge of an abyss,” one official said.
Speaking for the usC.C.B., Mr. Canny said the conference didn’t support the thought of any asylum seekers from Haiti—whether or not they land on U.S. shores or are intercepted at sea—“brought in and warehoused in congregate situations” like a camp at Guantánamo.
He said international and U.S. law requires that asylum claims be respected and applications quickly evaluated. He suspects that the majority migrants shall be found to have legitimate claims based on Haiti’s disintegrating security conditions.
The thought of detaining Haitian migrants in third-party states or expanding the Migrant Operations Center at Guantánamo was quickly condemned by the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a national coalition of spiritual advocates and repair providers for Haiti. In a letter to the White House, the alliance noted that the Guantánamo site had been used up to now to detain Haitian migrants and is now “associated equally with cruelty towards Haitians and more recently, lawlessness, torture, and executive overreach.”
“We call in your administration to prioritize protections for Haitian nationals,” the alliance said. “This includes halting returns and expulsions to Haiti given the life-threatening conditions there.” The group urged the creation of “swift, meaningful, and substantial protected pathways to protection for Haitians” and access to use for asylum in the US, “without discrimination, and no matter whether people travel by land, sea, or air looking for refuge.”
A spokesperson for the National Security Council declined in an email to America to substantiate the possible use of U.S. facilities in Cuba to detain Haitian migrants. But, he said, “the U.S. government at all times does contingency planning out of an abundance of caution and for a big selection of potential scenarios. These contingencies for migration existed long before the Biden-Harris Administration.”
Archbishop Wenski: “A brief- or long-term stay in Guantánamo doesn’t address in any positive way the rights or the dignity of the Haitian people.”
“We have now not seen a rise in Haitian maritime migration, and no decisions have been made,” he added.
With greater than 300,000 residents of Haitian descent, the Archdiocese of Miami hosts the most important Haitian community in the US, and its archbishop, Thomas Wenski, has been especially attentive to the plight of Haitian immigrants. In an email response to questions from America, he urged the Biden administration to enhance screening capability for asylum claims ahead of a possible migration emergency out of Haiti. “A brief- or long-term stay in Guantánamo doesn’t address in any positive way the rights or the dignity of the Haitian people,” he said.
“I feel before everything, we must follow the law of the land and implement screenings to make sure that individuals facing persecution in Haiti won’t be returned summarily,” the archbishop said.
“Historically, Haitians have at all times faced a double standard in attempting to make their claim for refugee protection,” he said. “This protection must be provided in a protected environment, on our shores, where there may be adequate access to legal representation and to family and/or community support systems.”
He added, “For many who are already within the U.S. but who don’t qualify for the present [Temporary Protected Status] designation, Haiti must be re-designated to incorporate these late arrivals or on the very least provide them work authorization pending review of their individual asylum claims.”
The Haitian Bridge Alliance likewise urged the extension and redesignation of T.P.S. for Haitian migrants in a letter to the Biden administration, deploring its continuing efforts to repatriate Haitian migrants.
Whoops of joy filled the streets of Port-au-Prince when gas stations reopened in November. Haitians are hoping for a return to something closer to normalcy.
“Regardless that the Haitian government has been unable to soundly receive and reintegrate its residents,” the alliance said, “there have been over 240 deportation and expulsion flights to Haiti since September 19, 2021. Most of those estimated 25,000 individuals removed to Haiti were blocked from looking for asylum and other protection by Title 42 policies.
“These removals severely undermine the Administration’s promise to construct a fairer and more inclusive immigration and asylum system for all.”
On Dec. 5 Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced a redesignation of T.P.S. for Haiti and an extension for Haitian migrants already residing in the US for an extra 18 months, from Feb. 4 through Aug. 3, 2024.
A way forward?
Archbishop Wenski urged that latest arrivals from Haiti must be quickly afforded the fitting to work. Providing work authorization, he said, is a win “for our own economy which desperately needs employees,” a win “for the asylum seekers who want nothing greater than the power to sustain themselves and contribute to the economy,” and a win “for controlled migration as an economically stable Haitian community here within the U.S. sends remittances home to their family in Haiti, reducing the necessity to migrate.”
“This last point, which seeks to handle the basis causes of migration, is the way in which forward,” Archbishop Wenski said. “The problems in Haiti have to be addressed in a sensitive but meaningful option to rebuild Haiti and permit for a functioning government which may adequately address the gangs who now run civil society.”
Haiti might have help from the U.N. or other multilateral forces to accomplish that, in line with Father Saint-Félix.
Haitian police are “unable to tackle the safety crisis,” he said, without “good and sincere” international assistance. As if to spotlight the brazenness of Haiti’s gang leaders, the director of Haiti’s National Police Academy, Harington Rigaud, was gunned down on Nov. 25 on the doors of a police training facility. But two months after the Biden administration first proposed the deployment of a rapid response military force to Haiti, diplomatic momentum for the plan to intercede in Haiti is fading.
Whoops of joy filled the streets of Port-au-Prince when gas stations reopened in November. Haitians are hoping for a return to something closer to normalcy. But Father Saint-Félix finds himself wondering how the federal government will prevent gangs from taking on fuel terminals again. How long will the gas stations stay open this time?
Parents have begun a “timid movement” toward allowing their children to enterprise out onto the streets to return to highschool, he said, anticipating any small sign of hope. “We shall be following closely the end result of this movement.”
With reporting from The Associated Press
This report was updated on Dec. 5 after the Department of Homeland Security redesignated Haiti for temporary protected status and prolonged that status an extra 18 months.