“What I want everyone here to know, no matter how long you have been here (in the United States)… you are a native Haitian,” Pierre told them in Creole. “What happens at home concerns you.”
From Miami to Brooklyn, members of the Haitian diaspora in the United States, more than 1 million people, say they are increasingly terrified for their friends and families affected by the gang violence that has transformed the streets of Port-au-Prince. – the capital of the world’s first free black republic – in a war zone. In recent weeks, dozens of people have been killed and at least 17,000 forced from their homes as gangs continue to loot neighborhoods across the city. The U.S. State Department has begun chartering helicopters to transport U.S. citizens from Haiti to safety in the neighboring Dominican Republic.
But many Haitians in the United States appear divided on what happens next.
Some fear that the crisis in Haiti is not receiving the same level of attention from U.S. officials as the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. “As a taxpayer, my money goes to Ukraine,” said Wildeen Tirone, 33, a special education coordinator. “And that’s fine with me. All I’m saying is that Haiti needs help too. But as the world’s first free black country, Haiti has never gotten what it deserves.
Others are wary of increased foreign intervention, tracing the island’s problems to its founding as an autonomous country in 1804 after a long and bloody war of independence against France.
“Haiti should be able to fly on its own,” said Tony Jean Thenor, a 65-year-old social worker from Miami who emigrated in 1980. “We need people who can say to the U.S. government, ‘Look, this drug is helping you. was administered.” prescribing us for the last 50 years does not work.
The instability comes as some Haitian Americans reflect on the U.S. elections in November.
Joel Tirone, Wildeen Tirone’s husband, credits President Biden with launching the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans seeking to escape violence in their countries. About 30,000 migrants per month can enter the United States under the program, which also allows them to work provided they have a financial sponsor and can pass a background check.
Joel Tirone, who says he left Haiti in 2016 because of government corruption and settled in the United States, hopes to use the program to bring his mother to the United States.
But he also fears that a second Biden term would lead to greater US interference in Haiti’s affairs and wonders whether Donald Trump’s return to the White House would not be better for his country.
“I think Trump would be better for Haiti because Trump doesn’t want to help other countries,” said Joel Tirone, 36, a therapist and social worker.
Haiti has been devastated by natural disasters, including the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people in 2010, and by political violence that culminated in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. After assassination, the Biden administration supported Ariel Henry, then acting prime minister, to succeed Moïse. Last month, Henry announced he was resigning as violence continued to paralyze the country. Last year, there were 5,000 homicides in Haiti, more than double the number in 2022, according to a recent United Nations report.
The chaos has some fearing that the United States is on the brink of a new migration crisis. Since the beginning of last year, the number of encounters between the US border patrol and Haitian migrants has continued to increase. The agency encountered 123,554 Haitian citizens attempting to enter the country over the past six months, compared to 52,233 during the same period a year earlier.
In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said he was sending more than 250 additional officers and troops from the Florida National Guard and state to the Florida Keys and waters of the southern part of the state “in anticipation of a potential influx” of immigrants from Haiti entering the country. illegally in the United States.
But so far, there has not been a significant increase in the number of migrants from Haiti trying to reach the United States by boat, according to John William Beal, a Coast Guard spokesman. The Coast Guard reported returning 65 Haitian migrants found on a distressed sailboat near the Bahamas in March.
Still, migrant advocates warn that if the Biden administration does not open more legal avenues to enter the country, more Haitians will resort to dangerous sea crossings out of desperation.
People fleeing other countries have been welcomed into America in a way that Haitian migrants typically are not, said Taisha Saintil, senior policy analyst at UndocuBlack Network, an immigrant advocacy organization led by black immigrants. “We are calling on the administration to completely stop any plans to (…) detain Haitian immigrants” who try to enter the country, she said.
Peterson Demmat, 27, has been sheltering from violence in Haiti since August, when he came to North Miami Beach as part of the humanitarian parole program. But he did not escape the crisis emotionally.
He constantly checks his phone, waiting for calls from his mother, still in Port-au-Prince. They usually talk two or three times a week, he said, but when he calls her and can’t get through to her, he fears something terrible has happened. “All of me – all of my spirit – everything stays in Haiti,” he said. “When I hear that there is sad news in Haiti… I feel like deep down my heart is broken.”
Salvation Church of God, located in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Brooklyn, is a hub for Haitians. Newly arrived migrants in New York can access food, work, school and housing at the church, while worshipers also pool their money to send to charities they have created on the island.
“People always talk about what immigrants take, but here we make sure that no one who comes through here ends up on food stamps or welfare,” Wildeen Tirone said. “We have trained them to become people who make this country better. »
A group of Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Biden administration in March asking it to expand access to a program known as Temporary Protected Status for Haitian Migrants, which allows Haitian nationals currently in the United States to stay and obtain a work permit as long as the island remains unsafe. As of December, nearly 165,000 Haitian nationals held TPS status. The program is set to expire in August.
The Department of Homeland Security is monitoring the situation in Haiti, said agency spokesperson Naree Ketudat. But there are no plans to expand the program, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently told the Miami Herald. “Let me be clear: When we interdict Haitian individuals at sea, we return them to Haiti as quickly as possible,” he said.
A National Security Council spokesperson said the United States has so far seen no signs of a migrant crisis. The administration is working to find ways to help Haitians stabilize their country, according to the spokesperson, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
“It’s not up to the United States to solve this crisis,” the official said. “This has to be a Haitian-led and Haitian-led resolution to the crisis, and that’s what we’ve been focused on.” »
Judith Dorlean, 36, came to the United States 30 years ago with her parents and four siblings. Even as his family continues to send food and money to loved ones in Port-au-Prince and a smaller community called Thomazeau, their gifts cannot stop the surge of fear that has hit the country. . Sometimes, “they can’t sleep or stay at home because the gangs have taken over certain parts,” she explained. Other family members have been kidnapped for ransom in recent months, relatives told him.
It’s hard to say exactly how, or even if, the U.S. government should intervene, because Haiti must be able to govern itself, Dorlean said. But she has been monitoring local elected officials to ensure they follow through on campaign promises to expand programs that would make it easier for Haitian Americans to bring their family members to the United States to live and work .
“The resources that the United States should provide must be in the best interest of the Haitian people” rather than serving American interests, Dorlean said.
Weiselande “Yanui” Cesar, a 54-year-old artist and instructor living in Miami Shores, remembers vividly the day she and her two sisters were brought to the United States. When their American Airlines flight arrived at LaGuardia Airport in March 1981, they were greeted by their father, stepmother and uncles, who held coats for them so they could face their first new winter. -york.
Cesar said she doesn’t remember the exact reason she was “sent” at age 11, but she imagines it was for the same reason many other Haitian families immigrated to New York at the time: the search for a better life and a good environment. education. The plan was for her to stay a short time, perhaps for high school and college, and then return home to Haiti.
But with continued political unrest in Haiti, that plan never came to fruition. Cesar moved with his parents to North Miami after graduating from high school. She later married and had children in Florida. She had to cancel her last trip back to Haiti, just before the covid-19 pandemic, she explained, because the island had become too politically unstable again.
“For me, seeing Haiti as it is, it hurts me. But it’s also: “What can I do? ” said Cesar, who runs Tradisyon Lakou Lakay Inc., roughly translated as “Hometown Traditions,” an arts and cultural nonprofit that offers Haitian folk dance classes.
“We have the power to take back Haiti,” Cesar said. “Why can’t we start again?” »
Felton reported from New York. Reshma Kirpalani in Miami contributed to this report.
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