Can Haiti turn the page from charity to business investment?
A Haitian youth sees his reflection in a broken mirror as he combs his hair in the Jalousie neighborhood of the Petion Ville
Published September 5, 2014 at 6:20 PM
The International Monetary Fund agreed to give Haiti more time to get its fiscal house in order. The Haitian government has until the end of the year to make more reforms. CCTV America’s Mike Walter Reports.
Part of a $268 million payout from the IMF is at stake. That money is just part of the growing investment in Haiti.
After the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, crime soared, unemployment sky-rocketed, and investment dwindled. In the wake of that earthquake, Haiti was dubbed the “NGO capital of the world.”
The World Bank approved more than $900 million toward Haiti’s recovery and development. To date, a little more than half has actually been delivered. The big challenge now for Haitian leaders has been turning the page from charity to business investment.
The Haiti Renewal Alliance is a non-profit organization, on the front lines of creating jobs and building the Haitian economy. Its recent expo in Washington, D.C. brought together the brightest minds on Haiti.
One place the Haitian government is looking for investment is with the Haitians living abroad. The so-called Haitian diaspora contributes about two billion dollars annually to the Caribbean island. They also still have little influence on Haitian politics.
The leaders of Haiti’s government, all the way up to the President and Prime Minister, have been meeting with Haitians abroad, including in South Florida. CCTV America’s Nitza Soledad Perez reports.
Saturday, May 19 Rally at White House to Demand Residency for TPS Holders and to Denounce Trump’s Racism
The New York-based 1804 Movement for All Immigrants, in conjunction with groups from Massachusetts, Florida, and Washington, DC, will rally in front of the White House tomorrow to demand permanent residency for the 400,000 immigrants who currently hold Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and that President Donald Trump publicly apologize for calling Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations “shithole countries.”
The rally will be held on Saturday, May 19, 2018 from noon to 4 p.m. in Lafayette Park as well as on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The demonstration comes on the heels of the May 8 Washington Post story that the U.S. embassies in Haiti, El Salvador, and Honduras warned against ending TPS for some 300,000 immigrants from those countries, but then-Secretary of State “Rex Tillerson dismissed the advice and joined other administration officials in pressuring leaders at the Department of Homeland Security to strip the immigrants of their protections.”
The 1804 Movement for All Immigrants was formed by many Haitian grassroots organizations and sympathetic U.S. groups in direct response to President Donald Trump’s provocative statements during a meeting with Congressional leaders on Jan. 11. The Trump administration has also terminated TPS for six of the 10 nations that currently hold it.
The demonstrators will also demand that President Trump stop his warlike policies against Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, and Syria. The coalition calls for U.S. and UN reparations to Haiti, an end to police profiling and terror in the U.S., and the pull-out of the UN occupation forces deployed in Haiti since 2004.
“There has not yet been a major demonstration in Washington, DC to denounce Trump’s gutting of TPS as a part of his campaign to stop and expel black and brown immigrants from coming to the U.S.,” said unionist and teacher Marie Paule Florestal, one of the key organizers of the May 19 rally. “We are going to fill Lafayette Park and Pennsylvania Avenue with our banners, placards, and voices to tell Trump and the world’s media that his racist policies will no longer be tolerated. Our Haitian ancestors defeated Napoleon Bonaparte when he tried to reestablish slavery in Haiti. Today, we will stop Trump from turning back the clock to the days of Jim Crow, lynchings, and immigrant demonization.”
In November, Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) introduced the American Promise Act of 2017, to allow TPS holders, or those with deferred enforced departure (DED), to apply for permanent residency, if they do so within three years of enactment of the bill.
Trump says some unauthorized immigrants 'aren't people' but 'animals' who will be rapidly kicked out of the US
AOL - President Donald Trump on Wednesday (May 16) said some undocumented immigrants "aren't people" but "animals" who will be taken out of the country "at a rate that’s never happened before."
"We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in, we’re stopping a lot of them, but we’re taking people out of the country, you wouldn’t believe how bad these people are," Trump said during a meeting with California lawmakers and officials who oppose their state's policies on sanctuary cities.
"These aren’t people. These are animals, and we’re taking them out of the country at a rate that’s never happened before," Trump added.
Trump, who has long condemned sanctuary cities, also said the US has the "the dumbest laws on immigration in the world."
The president's comments reportedly came in response to a California official's remarks on MS-13 gang members.
Trump has previously referred to unauthorized immigrants involved in gang activities as "animals." He also famously launched his presidential campaign with a speech in which he said Mexico was sending "rapists," criminals and drug dealers across the border.
The president's rhetoric on immigration has been widely condemned, but his hardline stance on the issue has also generated a significant amount of support for him in various parts of the country.
Deporting 300,000 TPS recipients will devastate Haiti and Central American countries
BY ANDRÉS OPPENHEIMER
May 09, 2018 05:51 PM
Updated May 10, 2018 09:15 AM
President Trump’s decision in recent months to deport more than 300,000 Central American and Caribbean immigrants will create havoc in some of Latin America’s most troubled countries, such as El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti.
It’s a short-sighted policy that — alongside Trump’s shameful campaign to deport about 700,000 “DREAMers,” young people brought to the country as children by undocumented parents — almost surely will backfire. A destabilized Central America and Haiti will only produce more illegal immigration, drug trafficking and greater violence in the region.
Even Trump’s own State Department officials have warned against the president’s moves to deport more than 57,000 Hondurans, 195,000 Salvadorans and 46,000 Haitians who enjoyed Temporary Protection Status, or TPS, according to State Department cables first disclosed by The Washington Post this week.
Many of these TPS recipients have been living in this country and paying taxes for two decades, and have more than 270,000 U.S.-born children. They will now be separated from their children and forced to return to their native countries within the next 18 months.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, whose office disclosed the existence of the State Department cables, told me via e-mail that Trump’s decision to deport TPS recipients “runs counter our national security.” It will exacerbate these countries’ security and economic challenges, he said.
Manuel Orozco, a migration expert with the Washington D.C.-based Inter-American Dialogue, told me in a telephone interview from El Salvador that, “The return of these people to Central America and Haiti would have a devastating impact.”
These impoverished and violence-ridden countries cannot absorb the current number of youths who enter their labor markets every year. According to Orozco’s estimates, El Salvador and Honduras together create jobs for only about 10 percent of the 120,000 youths who join the labor force every year.
Play Video
“Imagine what will happen if they now get tens of thousands of deportees. It will be an atomic bomb,” Orozco said.
El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti also depend heavily on remittances from their relatives in the United States. Even if the Trump administration can’t enforce all planned deportations, a decrease of remittances would badly hurt these countries’ economies.
Why is the president deporting hundreds of thousands of mostly law-abiding immigrants at a time when the U.S. economy is doing great, unemployment is at its lowest level in recent years and illegal immigration is at near historic lows?
The answer is simple: It’s vintage Trump populism. Much like Trump’s vow to build a wall on the border, it’s a measure aimed at pleasing his xenophobic — if not racist — base.
Trump is deceiving the world by saying — contrary to official U.S. government statistics — that there is an avalanche of illegal immigrants and that the U.S. border is out of control. That’s blatantly deceptive.
While there has been an increase in illegal migration over the past few months, the flow of undocumented immigrants to the United States is a very small fraction of what it was decades ago.
Apprehensions of undocumented immigrants along the Mexico border last year totaled 310,000, compared to 416,000 in 2016, 876,000 in 2007, and 1.7 million in 2000, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics.
Sending hundreds of thousands of deportees to Central America and Haiti will only make things worse.
Instead of destabilizing America’s neighbors with phony claims of a threat of an “invasion” of illegal immigrants, the Trump administration should seek to expand free trade and investment agreements with Central America and Haiti, to promote economic development in the region. That would help these countries’ economies grow, reduce poverty and violence, and diminish pressure on their people to migrate.
Play Video
But Trump is not concerned with the long-term impact of his policies, even when his own State Department experts tell him they will hurt U.S. national security. Like all populists, he takes the short-term view, seeking quick applause from his Latino-phobic followers. It’s a mistake that will haunt America for many years.
WATCH THE “OPPENHEIMER PRESENTA” TV SHOW SUNDAYS AT 8 P.M. ON CNN EN ESPAÑOL. TWITTER:@OPPENHEIMERA
Haitian Entrepreneurs: Apply Now
to Participate in the Haiti Tech Summit
May 15, 2018
(Port-au-Prince) The United States Embassy in Haiti announces its sponsorship of the 2018 Haiti Tech Summit, June 21 – 23, 2018. Haitian entrepreneurs interested in learning how to incorporate technology into their business model and marketing strategies are encouraged to apply now through May 30, 2018 atgoo.gl/KBW7Xh. As part of the Embassy’s on-going efforts to promote entrepreneurship and bi-lateral economic growth, the Embassy is seeking representation from creators and innovators across Haiti’s ten departments to participate.
Participants will be able to meet over one hundred speakers from Google, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Uber, and many others. The Haiti Tech Summit is part of a thirteen-year initiative of the Global Startup Ecosystem. The goal of the Summit is to help entrepreneurs in Haiti catalyze innovation in their communities and in their country.
In April 2018, the U.S. Embassy hosted #TechCampOkay, bringing together over 30 entrepreneurs from the Grand d’Anse and Southern Departments with local leaders and experts from the diaspora, IDEO, and U.S. Embassy exchange program alumni. The Embassy regularly engages the regional Chambers of Commerce as well as the American Chamber of Commerce in pursuit of this key priority.
His songs got him banned from carnival. Now Haiti's ex-president isn't welcome in Miami
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
May 17, 2018 06:47 PM
Updated 6 hours 18 minutes ago
At Miami's Haitian Flag Day celebration on Friday, Haitian rights activists plan to protest a planned performance by Sweet Micky, the stage name of former Haitian president Michel Martelly, whose controversial lyrics got him banned from two Haiti carnivals earlier this year.
The event is supposed to be a celebration of Haitian culture and the sewing together of the first flag on May 18, 1803. Martelly was invited to play for Sounds of Little Haiti, a free Haitian musical showcase that happens to fall on this Haitian Flag Day.
The event is being organized by the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, 212 NE 59 Ter., and Sandy Dorsainvil, its former director who now runs a consulting firm. In a press release advertising Martelly's appearance, organizers said the "Haiti pop icon" will be there "to perform his most electrifying hits."
"We don't want him in Little Haiti," said Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Haitian rights advocacy group, Family Action Network Movement, or FANM.
In an open letter to Mayor Francis Suarez, activists say the Haitian American community is “outraged that city resources are being used to host a performance by Martelly.
"President Martelly’s actions during his five years in office (2010-2015) brought disrepute to the office of president and inflicted lasting harm to the dignity of Haitians in Haiti and in Miami," read the letter posted on Facebook. "He is not an appropriate representative of Haitian culture and is a poor model for our youth."
Among their complaints, the former president's reputation for "degenerating" women, and accusations of corruption and the jailing of political opponents that surrounded his presidency.
Martelly has denied the allegations against him. And earlier this year, he lashed out at critics in a new Carnival tune. He had been banned from carnivals in the cities of Gonaives and Jacmel after women's groups and other organizations protested.
Dorsainvil, who invited Martelly, defended the invitation in an emailed response to the Miami Herald.
"I respect what people might feel about his political platform as president. However, Sweet Micky is one of the most popular bands in the Haitian music industry and the night is an opportunity to celebrate that music during Haitian heritage month," she said.