HAITIAN MIGRANTS
Congresswoman demands policy changes, visits detained Haitians
TAMARAC. FLA. (WSVN) - Months after becoming the first Haitian from Florida to be elected to Congress, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is working to help Haitians who sail to South Florida look for better and safer lives.
“We’re still discriminating against Haitian migrants,” said Cherfilus-McCormick.
Weeks after hundreds of men, women and children, desperate to escape conditions in Haiti, boarded boats to make it to the U.S., Cherfilus-McCormick and other Haitian Americans are demanding policy changes to make the immigration process fair.
“We’re seeing the terror that’s going on in Haiti. It’s a terror that’s similar to what we see in other areas and in other countries that are being granted asylum, but yet the Haitian community is still being denied asylum,” said Cherfilus-McCormick.
A Trump era directive called Title 42, which uses the COVID pandemic as a reason to expel migrants, is still in place. Some Ukrainians, however, have reportedly been allowed in to argue their case.
“Our Haitian brothers and sisters are desperate. That’s the only way you’ll risk your life like that. When you’re a mom and you have your babies, you’ll go to any extent to protect them,” said State Representative Rosalind Osgood.
President Joe Biden, while campaigning in Little Haiti in 2020, said, “I won’t quit on my part as your president, making sure the Haitian community has an even shot, gets back on its feet and moves in the directions that they’ll realize it’s incredible, incredible potential.”
Cherfilus-McCormick sent a letter to the Biden administration, asking Title 42 be rescinded.
“We stand here representing the Haitian diaspora, demanding that equity in immigration is actually enforced,” said Cherfilus-McCormick.
Elected officials and activists toured the Broward Transitional Center where many Haitian migrants are kept until they are deported. She said they are concerned about the conditions they saw there.
National Center of Haitian Apostolate
FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT (March 27, 2022)
The Prodigal Son OR The Merciful Father
Let us be touched by the teachings conveyed by the well-known parable of the PRODIGAL SON. Let’s refresh our memory! A thoughtless young man, not waiting for his father’s death, demands his share of heritage. The rich father yields to the request and the light-headed son goes away to a distant land where he squanders his fortune with prostitutes. Reduced to extreme poverty, he comes back to his senses and returns to the Father’s House pleading for forgiveness. But the old father, instead of blaming him, orders to slaughter the fattened calf and throws a welcome party for his return.
That short story concerns you and me. We are God’s children since the day of our baptism. But when we sin, we act like the mindless prodigal son. We give up God’s treasures of grace blindly seeking the passing pleasures of sin. We greedily go after money and the cravings of the flesh.
Jesus in this parable begs us to come to our senses and return to the real joys procured by repentance.
Don’t we realize that God is a God of infinite mercy like the good rich man of the story? He persists in his love for us in spite of our disgusting conduct. The delights of grace await the repentant sinner!
Like St Paul, I implore you on behalf of Christ “Be reconciled to God.” Lent is a time for reconciliation and Penance! The priest in the confessional is the dispenser of God’s mercy! Don’t delay! Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Confess your sins and come back to the banquet of Holy Communion!
Former Haitian sports minister Evans Lescouflair accused of raping children
THE GUARDIAN - A former sports minister of Haiti has been accused of repeatedly raping an 11-year-old pupil while a teacher in the 1980s and is facing a civil lawsuit brought by several other alleged victims who claim he sexually abused them.
Complaints against Evans Lescouflair, who served in several posts at Haiti’s Ministry of Youth, Sports and Civic Action between 2008 and 2011 and remains influential in Haitian football as president of youth side Club Sportif Saint-Louis, were sent to the commissaire of Port-au-Prince governorate on Thursday by lawyers working on behalf of Claude-Alix Bertrand and several other alleged victims. It is understood that they contain accusations that one of Lescouflair’s alleged victims killed themselves in 2008.
“It’s a criminal complaint about the repeated rape of minors under 15 years old,” the lawyer Franck Vanéus told the Guardian. “The sentence for this crime is life imprisonment.”
Bertrand – the Haitian ambassador to Unesco and captain of Haiti’s national polo team – told the Guardian that he was abused by Lescouflair when he was an 11-year-old student at Saint-Louis de Gonzague at the end of the 1980s.
“He touched my intimate parts in a way that no one did before,” said Bertrand. “It was so uncomfortable. I didn’t understand anything, I was just a child. I asked him why he was doing it. He kept doing it and asked me: ‘You don’t like it?’
“After that day, I tried to avoid his look. But he kept me a second time, a third time. Each time he kept me apart after a class, things were going further until the day he raped me. He penetrated me. I cried, begging him to stop but nothing changed. It lasted for two years. It happened in an office far away from the classroom.”
Bertrand says that he experienced severe depression but did not report the abuse because he was afraid of the potential consequences.
“I grew up in a society where the teachers had all the rights,” he said. “I thought that no one would believe me. I even thought that I may be punished for it … I was only 11 years old, I was a child and I was so scared. He kept going until the day I became sick.”
Bertrand’s family subsequently moved to the United States, where he has received psychiatric treatment for several years.
…
Lescouflair refused to answer questions from the Guardian but told the Haitian newspaper La Nouvelliste in February after Bertrand’s accusations first went public that he had “nothing to say, since the man who made this statement is married to a man of foreign nationality” – a reference to the fact that Bertrand is gay.
Former Haitian Senator to be extradited to the US
BY CANDICE HAUGHTON
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Former Haitian Senator, Joseph Joel John, a person of interest in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, has consented to be extradited to the United States.
The extradition application was brought before the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Thursday, by Senior Deputy Director of Prosecutions, Jeremy Taylor.
"Your Honour, this is the matter of the request for extradition of Joseph Joel John, a citizen 0f Haiti to the United States," Taylor said, adding that a provisional warrant of arrest was issued for John on Tuesday by virtue of the extradition treaty between the US and Jamaica.
He also noted that under this treaty the US has 60 days to provide evidence of the supposed crime.
Taylor made it clear in court that only John is required to be extradited.
Before signing the written consent, John expressed his concerns about leaving his family behind. However, through an interpreter it was explained that he will not be sent to the US immediately.
Senior Parish Judge, Lori-Ann Montague-Cole advised John to "prepare himself" to be extradited after the written consent was handed to her.
She also said she can "appreciate a man having a concern about leaving his wife and children."
After the situation was explained to her in detail, John's wife, Edume, was observed with an asthma inhaler in hand and hyperventilating.
John, his wife and two children, were arrested in south-east St Elizabeth on January 20.
His family have since applied for asylum in Jamaica through the Passport Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA), the application pending a response from the Permanent Secretary's Office in the Ministry of National Security. It was revealed that the permanent secretary is not in the country.
Meanwhile, Montague-Cole commended the police officers for their care of John's seven-year-old son, who was seen sleeping on the laps of the officers.
"The JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) has some good aunts and uncles," Montague-Cole said, noting that there is still kindness in the justice system.
The family is to return to court on April 5 for the decision regarding refugee status from the Permanent Secretary's Office.
Moïse was killed on July 7 when a hit team invaded the presidential residence and shot him dead. His wife, Martine was wounded but survived. Judicial police have questioned at least 21 presidential guards who were present on the fateful night.
