Haitians face deportation as 2010 quake reprieve expires

Leila MACOR

AFPJanuary 25, 2017

Miami (AFP) - Bernedy Prosper is afraid his 23-year-old son Harold will die if he is deported from the United States back to Haiti.

Prosper, 52, had hoped Harold could benefit from a special status granted to Haitian immigrants in 2010 after a devastating earthquake struck the impoverished Caribbean nation.

Instead, Harold is one of more than 4,000 Haitians awaiting deportation due to a sudden policy reversal late last year as then-president Barack Obama was preparing to leave office.

With President Donald Trump now in power, elected on a vow to build a wall on the Mexican border and halt illegal immigration, Harold's situation looks bleak.

"I ran away for my life and now my kid had to do the same," said a despairing Prosper as he stood in an immigration aid center in Little Haiti, the heart of the Haitian diaspora in dilapidated north Miami.

Prosper himself arrived in Florida on a boat without immigration documents in 2000 and obtained political asylum.

He tried to bring his son over to join him, but Harold got tired of waiting for the legal process to run its course, and decided to try his luck crossing the Mexican border illegally.

Instead he was caught in San Diego, California, just as deportations of Haitians are ramping up dramatically compared to last January when, according to government figures, only 267 Haitians were awaiting deportation.

"I believe that if he is put back to Haiti, I have no more son," said Prosper, his head down and voice a low monotone.

"I know they will kill him," he said.

- 'Haiti has improved' -

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, and has not fully recovered from the earthquake -- some 55,000 people still live in temporary housing, most in appalling conditions.

But late last year, Obama decided Haitians no longer qualified for Temporary Protection Status (TPS), as the status reserved for victims of natural disasters is known.

"The situation in Haiti has improved sufficiently to permit the US government to remove Haitian nationals on a more regular basis, consistent with the practice for nationals from other nations," said then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in announcing the policy change September 22.

A few weeks later, on October 4, Hurricane Matthew tore through southwestern Haiti. The powerful Category 4 hurricane killed more than 500 people, left thousands homeless, and triggered a cholera outbreak.

US authorities halted deportations for a month, but in early November began to "significantly expand removal operations," Johnson said in a subsequent statement.

Randy McGrorty, an attorney with Catholic Legal Services -- a group that offers legal aid for immigrants -- says it is inhumane to deport Haitians to their storm-ravaged, earthquake-damaged country.

The TPS will remain in effect until July, and Haitians who are already protected do not risk deportation.

But since October more than 1,600 other Haitians have been deported.

"We get desperate phone calls from people. Unfortunately there's nothing we can do," said Steve Forester, who works for the non-profit Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

"It is simply wrong, insensitive, immoral, even obscene, to be deporting people now, knowing the suffering of the people there and that the government does not have the ability in Haiti to care for these people," he said.

- 600,000 Haitians in US -

Following the earthquake many Haitians migrated to Brazil. But as the South American giant's economy took a downward turn, they are picking up stakes and heading to Central America in hopes of making it to Mexico and then slipping across the border into the United States.

As of 2012, some 600,000 Haitian immigrants were in the United States, most of them in Florida, or about 1.5 percent of all foreigners in the country, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

Forester believes that US treatment of Haitian migrants -- especially when compared to the benefits that Cuban immigrants have received since 1966 -- is essentially racist.

"Haitians are black. They do not have the political power of Hispanics in general in the US because they don’t have the numbers. They don't have the political power in Florida," said Forrester.

Now the fate of the Haitians is in the hands of Trump, who has vowed to deport as many as three million immigrants who are in the country illegally and have criminal records.

"I hope he will decide that it is wrong to deport anyone to Haiti now, that a strong and secure Haiti is in our national interest," said Forester.

California Just Threatened To Stop Paying Taxes If Trump Cuts Federal Funding Over Sanctuary City Status

The State of California’s elected officials are exploring ways to combat President Trump’s Executive Order cutting off funding to sanctuary cities. National legal experts say that Trump’s sanctuary cities order is unconstitutional because, at its core, the order is an attempt to commandeer state and local officials in violation of the 10th Amendment.

California’s Democratic leaders believe there are numerous federal programs receiving state funds as well, which they will seek to cut, to make up for anything Republicans siphon out of their budgets. San Francisco’s CBS affiliate reports that the federal government only spends 78 cents in California for every tax dollar sent from that state to Washington:

The state of California is studying ways to suspend financial transfers to Washington after the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal money from sanctuary cities, KPIX 5 has learned. “California could very well become an organized non-payer,” said Willie Brown, Jr, a former speaker of the state Assembly in an interview recorded Friday for KPIX 5’s Sunday morning news. “They could recommend non-compliance with the federal tax code.”

California’s two largest recipient cities San Francisco and Los Angeles together receive over $500 million dollars in federal funding annually, and according to Reuters, the top ten cities impacted will lose up to $2.27 billion dollars in funding per year. That doesn’t even include federal funding to law enforcement, which is excluded from the order.

California’s government has plenty of avenues to explore cutting funds to federal programs which get state funding because a non-partisan ranking says that the state is 46th most dependent on the federal government already. In fact, a 2014 study by The Atlantic found that California is one of the few states to get a negative return on investment by actually paying more federal taxes than receiving benefits in return.

If California succeeds in legislating a reversal of Trump’s federal funding mandates, it will mirror Mexico’s legislative efforts to fight Washington, DC’s Trump driven, suddenly bottomless desire to enact harmful policies.

The difference is that taking money away from Washington will further limit the Trump regime’s capacity to spend money in order to harm America as federal coffers suffer, and the red states who depend on help from blue states will see funds dry up.

 

Trudeau: Canada will welcome the refugees "independently of their faith"

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asserted on Saturday the will of his country to welcome the refugees "Independently of their faith," after the decision of the White House to forbid entry to the United States by nationals of seven Muslim countries.

“To those who flee persecution, terror and war, know that Canada will welcome you...”

 

Sunrise Airways purchases an Airbus A320 jet

The Haitian company Sunrise Airways positioned itself for an aggressive expansion in 2017 by introducing a new plane Airbus A320 with a capacity of 180 seats. Run according to contract with Dominican Wings, a subsidiary of the Lithuanian specialist of the rent-service Express Plane, the Airbus A320 connects Cuba to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

"This jet represents an important forward for our company and for our invaluable customers," declared Philippe Bayard, President of Sunrise Airways." He added that “The capacity and the comfort of the A320 raises our intra-Caribbean service in Cuba to an unparalleled level on the market. At the same time, we are now strongly positioned for a strong expansion in all the Caribbean, as well as our first trips in North America."

For reservations and more information, visit the www.sunriseairways.net site / or call:

Haiti: 509-2811-2222/1100

The United States: 1-305-433-2707

Dominican Republic:  1-849-916-6666

Cuba: 53-2269-8791

Haiti built the biggest solar-powered hospital of the world

THE UNIVERSITAIE HOSPITAL OF MIRBALAIS

Seven years after the terrible earthquake of January 12th, 2010, caused more than 220,000 victims, Haiti can be proud of having built the biggest solar-powered hospital in the world.

Situated in about fifty kilometers to the northeast of Port-au-Prince, more exactly in Mirebalais, this university center inaugurated in 2013 possesses 1,800 photovoltaic panels installed on its roof, to produce all the necessary energy for the medical care of more than 60,000 patients. As for the surplus energy, it is redistributed via the national network and benefits families in the area.

ZANMI LASANTE is the Haitian NGO (NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION) which built this magnificent hospital. For this project, it was seconded by its sister organization, the American NGO PIH.

Thanks to generous donors, free and quality care is lavished on the population, which come from all four corners of the country.

There we find among others health services, how to care for HIV / AIDS, tuberculosis, non-communicable diseases and prenatal care. Patients benefit from vaccines, dental care, and from treatments against malnutrition.

Mental health, emergency medicine and general and orthopedic surgery is also available. Health services to women including family planning, reproductive health and complete emergency obstetric care.

Today, the university hospital of Mirebalais is a resource for all the Haitian medical community, and the hope of an effective reconstruction of the country. With many young graduates leaving the country due to the lack of prospect for attractive career, ZANMI LASANTE hopes that the hospital of Mirebalais will contribute to lure them to stay and limit the "brain drain." That is why it operates in association with the State university of Haiti and the National School of Nurses, by offering them residences in medicine at HUM in several domains, among which the internal medicine, obstetrics, gynecology and surgery.

 

TWO HAITIAN FOUND DEAD RIDDLED WITH BALLS IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Last Wednesday in the agricultural community of Ojeda, municipal section "Cerro in Medio" in the Dominican Republic, two Haitian national Betoni Anesa, 24, and Marc Dorisca, 23, were found dead with their bodies riddled with bullets.

According to his brother, Mark Dorisca left his house located the district of Caamaño together with Betoni Anesa to go to Ojeda where there were several charcoal ovens. Worried after seeing him not returning, Dorsica’s brother left to search for him. That is when he made the macabre discovery.

Members of the Dominican Department of the Criminal Investigations opened an investigation to try to identify the culprits and to clarify the circumstances of these crimes. The victims were transported to the morgue of the St. Bartholomew hospital, before being transferred to the Azur Institute for an autopsy.

It should be noted that the production of charcoal is an illegal activity in the Dominican Republic that is severely punished. Such clandestine activities, are generally under the control of smugglers' networks which act very often under the protection and with the complicity of certain corrupt Dominican servicemen.