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Aristide Returns to Haiti, Along With U.S. Deportees
010 months ago
It’s been a quite a week in Haiti. Sunday’s presidential runoff stirred lots of anxiety, and some violence. Hip-hop performer Wyclef Jean, whose presidential bid was cut short last August, was shot in the hand in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, according to LA Times. And, most newsworthy, exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to the country after seven years of exile in South Africa.
The former slum priest became Haiti’s first democratically elected president, but did not fully serve either of his terms. He was ousted the first time in a coup, then in February 2004, he fled a rebellion aboard a U.S. plane.
President Obama has expressed concern that the popular figure would cause unrest if he came back to Haiti before the March 20 election. South African Cabinet Minister Collins Chabane said, “We can’t hold him hostage if he wants to go.”
Meanwhile, Jean has thrown his support behind pop performer Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, who is currently competing with constitutional law expert Mirlande Manigat, a former First Lady of Haiti. The Provisional Electoral Council will announce the preliminary results on March 31, and the final results will be confirmed on April 16.
Haitians in the United States are still embroiled in the United States’ decision to resume deportations back to the ravaged country. The New York Times video below details some of the challenges facing deportees who are returned to the country. U.S. resident, Wilkins Delabran, arrived to Haiti post-quake after an assault conviction. The 27-year-old thinks Haiti is like hell: “With no food, no water, no light, I don’t even know how to survive, I can’t even speak the language very well.”
Haitian-American deportees not only face cultural and linguistic displacement in what is a strange land to them, but they are vulnerable to diseases like cholera, which has already killed a Haitian man named Wildrick Guerrier, Jamilah King noted last month.
U.S. Set to Resume Deportations to Haiti
01 year ago
Just one year after a the earthquake that left Haiti devastated and killed more than 300,000 people, the United States is preparing to resume deporting people to the ravaged country.
After the disaster, the Obama administration offered Temporary Protective Status (TPS) to Haitians living in the U.S. TPS has historically been granted to immigrants from countries facing war or natural disaster, circumstances that make returning there particularly perilous. The deadline Haitian nationals have for filing for TPS is January 18. After that, Haitians who have not applied and lack needed documentation are at risk of deportation. Over 60,000 have applied for protected status according to the government, but an untold number have yet to apply.
Not everyone is eligible for TPS. Those with criminal convictions, even some minor ones, cannot receive protection, and it’s that populations who now faces immanent deportation to Haiti. Advocates say that resuming deportation now could amount to a death sentence for some of those expelled.
U.S. immigration officials say they plan to deport only serious offenders, but that definition still isn’t clear. Under the TPS rules, many minor run-ins with law can make a person ineligible for TPS and now vulnerable to deportation.
On December 9, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would begin deportations in January around the one-year anniversary of the quake. The government immediately began rounding up and detaining Haitians with criminal convictions, many of whom had long ago served time in jail and now live settled lives with their families, according to their supporters.
While nobody has been deported yet, the government says it plans to begin removing people this month. Legal advocates say that dozens of Haitian men and women with criminal records have been moved to a detention center in Louisiana, which often serves as the departure point for government deportation flights to Haiti.
It’s not a good time to arrive in Haiti. The cholera epidemic is still taking lives and thousands remain homeless. Many of those slated for deportation have lived in the United States for years along with their families. They’ll arrive in a changed country without support networks.
The U.S. government knows that Haiti is not a safe place these days. In a letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a coalition of legal advocacy groups including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and several university law clinics write:
It is ironic that on December 9, 2010, the same day ICE lifted its ban on deportations, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning discouraging any nonessential travel to Haiti on account of the situation of “continued high crime, the cholera outbreak, frequent disturbances in Port-au-Prince and in provincial cities, and limited police protection and access to medical care.”
Deportees to Haiti are not greeted warmly by the government there. In the past, deported people have been incarcerated upon arrival in jails with serious health and safety problems. Risk of contracting cholera is increased in jails and other health risks in the overcrowded institutions pose serious risks to those locked up there. According to the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, jails in the country have historically failed to provide incarcerated people with meals, instead expecting inmates’ families to bring them food. But for deported people without ties in Haiti, that may prove impossible. One U.S. based legal service provider who said she’s talked with about ten detainees in Louisiana detention centers said that only one had family in Haiti who he could rely on to bring meals.
The letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights tells the stories of several men who are slated for deportation. One of them is Evel Camelien, a 53-year-old who arrived in the United States by boat in 1980.
…Mr. Camelien has four children in the United States, ages 9, 11, 18, and 28. Three of his children in the United States are U.S. citizens and one is a lawful permanent resident. Prior to being detained by U.S. immigration authorities, Mr. Camelien was living with his older children and financially supporting his two younger children. …
Mr. Camelien had three other children who were living in Haiti, but all three died in the earthquake. Mr. Camelien also lost his mother, father, and sister-in-law to the disaster. Because Mr. Camelien has an order of removal based on a drug conviction, he will be detained by Haitian authorities upon arrival in Haiti. He has only a few members of his extended family living in Haiti. Mr. Camelien does not know where they are living and it is highly unlikely that, even if he is able to locate them, they would be able to assist Mr. Camelien once he is deported to Haiti and jailed.
Advocates are pushing the Obama Administration to halt the deportations before they resume, at least until conditions in Haiti are less dangerous. Meanwhile, some Congressional leaders are calling for an extension of Temporary Protected Status, which ends on July 18 for those in the program.
Wyclef’s Going to the Ivies
01 year ago
Looks like singer Wyclef Jean has managed to land on his feet after his failed presidential run in Haiti. The AP reported yesterday that the singer has accepted an appointment as a visiting fellow in Brown University’s Department of Africana Studies for the 2010-2011 school year.
Jean’s main task at the university will be to help lead its Haiti Initiative, which includes engaging students in lectures, faculty conversations and classes.
According to the AP, Jean says that his time at Brown will be “a period of learning and reflection.”
And it looks like he’ll have plenty to talk about. The Haitian-born singer has been under an intense amount of scrutiny ever since announcing his presidential ambitions over the summer. Those hopes were cut short after a governing body ruled him ineligible to run. It’s largely believed that Jean, who’s spent most of his life in the New York, didn’t meet the government’s constitutional residency requirements.
But the race was also riddled with accusations that the artist simply didn’t understand Haitian politics and culture enough to lead it in the aftermath of January’s devastating earthquake. That disaster killed upwards of 300,000 people, left another 100,000 homeless, and left billions of dollars in structural damage. And when his political IQ wasn’t being called into question, other raised doubts about his professed allegiance with the country’s poor after it was revealed that the singer had backed the coup 2004 coup of popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who remains exiled in South Africa.
After battling the country’s election officials to no avail, the singer had previously said he’ll channel his energy into his next album, tentatively titled “If I Were President, The Haitian Experience.”
President Wyclef? Singer Considers New Haiti Campaign
01 year ago
One of Haiti’s most beloved native sons is considering a run for the country’s often contentious top office. Representatives for Wyclef Jean, the former Fugees frontman who was born in the country but infamously grew up in Brooklyn, said in a statement released to reporters this morning that he’s still undecided about entering the quake-ravaged nation’s presidential race.
“Wyclef’s commitment to his homeland and its youth is boundless, and he will remain its greatest supporter regardless of whether he is part of the government moving forward … If and when a decision is made, media will be alerted immediately,” the statement read.
In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Jean confirmed his plans to be involved in the November 28 election, either as a candidate or supporter.
“Do I have political intentions? At this time no. But what I do have is a movement — it’s called Face a Face, ‘Face to Face’,” Jean said. “The youth population … we are going to encourage them to vote.”
Of course, he comes with his own baggage of corruption. After the country was hit by this year’s devastating earthquake, Jean’s Yele Haiti Foundation was widely criticized for misspending relief money. After raising more than $2 million in quake relief funds through a special text message campaign, it was revealed that before the quake hit, the organization paid Jean to perform at fundraising events and bought ad time on a TV station owned by the singer. At the time, Jean voiced disappointment at what he called the attack on his integrity and foundation.
Term limits prohibit current President Rene Preval from seek re-election, while exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide remains in South Africa, where he fled after a violent coup in 2004.
Wyclef has until the August 7 deadline to make his decision. Dozens of candidates are reportedly jockeying for the office, and the job of reconstruction in a country ravaged by a quake that killed more than 300,000 people and caused billions in structural damage is sure to be a tough one.
(Photo by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images)