Trump to Haitians awaiting green cards: You can’t come to the U.S., wait in Haiti

The Trump administration is ending an Obama-era immigration program that allowed thousands of Haitians who were eligible to receive a green card in two years to wait it out in the United States with relatives.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday that it was ending the Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program, and will now decide whether to allow Haitians to travel to the U.S. to await their lawful permanent resident status on a case-by-case and humanitarian basis. 

The decision, USCIS said, is consistent with a 2017 executive order on Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements. The order limits access to asylum, expands the use of detention, enhances enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border, and ensures that parole into the U.S. is exercised on a case-by-case basis.

USAID Awards New Agreement to Tackle Human Trafficking in Haiti

Port-au-Prince, July 31, 2019- In an effort to increase public awareness and protect victims, USAID signed a four-year cooperative agreement with the LUMOS Foundation to support a major acceleration of the Haitian government’s and civil society’s efforts to deliver transformative progress on the endemic issue of human trafficking, with a special focus on child trafficking and the thousands of children victim to cross-border trafficking and who have been placed in institutionalized care and domestic servitude.

This project will be implemented nationwide from 2019 to 2023 with an overarching goal of strengthening the capacity of the Haitian Government, local authorities and civil society to prevent, recognize, respond and prevent trafficking. USAID and LUMOS will increase public awareness of the dangers, legal consequences, and various forms of trafficking; develop and implement victim-centered services to provide protection and assistance to trafficked persons at the national and departmental levels; and enable the National Counter-Trafficking Committee (NCTC), L'Institut du Bien-Etre Social et de Recherches (IBESR), and partners to more effectively coordinate counter Trafficking in Persons activities. 

“There are many reasons vulnerable citizens can become trafficked - from their socio-economic conditions, to geographic locations, or their age,” said Acting Mission Director Gary Juste. “In Haiti, these situations tend to manifest themselves among children or those living along the border with Dominican Republic.  I look forward to USAID continuing its progress with the Government of Haiti to provide resources for victims and ensure that traffickers are brought to justice.”

This new project will build upon previous anti-trafficking successes by the Government of Haiti with support from the U.S. government. In the last seven years, the government of Haiti has closed several abusive orphanages and worked to reconstruct its foster care system to support child trafficking victims and reduce vulnerability to abuse. The government also increased the number of trained police; deployed its first class of border police trained to detect and combat trafficking; and increased coordination and oversight of its anti-trafficking efforts.

In Haiti, at least 30,000 children live in institutions, most of them in abusive orphanages where they are often subject to trafficking. Another form of trafficking in Haiti can be found within the widespread practice of placing children with other families to perform domestic worker, known as restavèks. In exchange for performing domestic tasks, children of families too poor to care for them should receive some sort of care and education from the receiving family. However, this practice is often characterized by children that are physically abused while in domestic servitude, unpaid for their work and prevented from attending school. In 2016, UNICEF published a report on children in domesticity, which estimated that 400,000 children are involved in domestic work; of those, 207,000 under age 15 are in unacceptable conditions.

\Lawsuit filed by Little Haiti resident over new development

Magic City Mega Complex developers plan to build 17 buildings in area

MIAMI - A development debate is creating controversy in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood.   

The Magic City Mega Complex got the green light to transform the neighborhood, but now one resident's new lawsuit is holding it up. 

Warren Perry didn't get to give his say on the issue with the city commission because he's a renter not a property owner. 

He is suing for standing. Whether he gets it or not remains to be seen. 

Perry and some others are opposed to not only the size of the development, but the entertainment components that they fear will create noise from traffic and ruin the quality of life. 

Developers said it will enhance the area and have promised to bring programs to the area and other benefits.

Although he is a renter, Perry maintains that he is a resident and, as such, has just as much stake in the neighborhood.

"It's too large for the scale of the community," Perry said about the new development.

Perry's lawsuit is the latest attempt to stop the development after it got final approvals five weeks ago.

Haiti senator tied to kidnapping committed by notorious gang leader, police say

A Haiti senator who recently questioned his own qualifications to hold public office is being tied to one of several kidnappings carried out by a notorious Haitian gang leader. 

Haiti National Police sources say an investigation into several kidnappings by infamous gang leader Arnel Joseph, who was arrested last week, reveal that during one of the kidnappings the gang leader was in contact with Haitian senator Garcia Delva.

The victim was a neighbor of Delva’s who had been kidnapped along with two of his employees in March as they drove from Léogâne to Port-au-Prince. During negotiations to secure the group’s release, the businessman’s wife reached out to Delva for help.

TOP ARTICLES

Unbeknownst to the victim’s wife, police say, Delva had already spoken with the gang leader, first on his cellphone and then seconds later on the kidnap victim’s telephone. The kidnapped group was eventually released after a ransom of $110,500 was paid.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Pierre Esperance, a human rights advocate who is familiar with the police investigation, said of Delva. “He is a deportee of the United States who is implicated in wrongdoing and he’s repeating what he used to do before. He has dirtied the image of the Senate like other senators.”

Delva, 45, did not return calls from the Miami Herald seeking comment. Founder and lead singer of the Haitian konpa band Mass Konpa, Delva earlier this year expressed his desire to run for president of Haiti and recently said during a live radio broadcast that there are many more Haitian citizens “who are are much more qualified than myself to be senator.”

Telling Haitians they should have the courage to run for office, he said: “I don’t want you to have another senator like me.”

This is not the first time that Joseph has been tied to Delva, who was charged with battery in 2000 in Miami-Dade County.

In April, the head of the Senate’s justice commission, Sen. Jean-Renel Senatus, told reporters that “there were a total of 24 phone conversations, some of which lasted 15 minutes, 92 seconds, others which lasted a minute” between Delva and Joseph. Senatus, a former government prosecutor, said the calls were made between Feb. 7 and Feb. 22. During that period, Joseph was being sought by Haitian police and even appeared, alongside members of his gang, at an anti-government protest near the presidential palace openly brandishing his gun. 

“The Senate has only one thing to do in this case and it is to remove Sen. Delva’s immunity,” said Esperance, who visited Joseph on Tuesday. 

The allegation involving Delva raises questions about the credibility of the Haitian Parliament, which has been derided as “legal bandits,” given the number of lawmakers with criminal histories. It also underscores concerns about the collusion between those in power in Haiti and gangs. In a detailed U.N. report on a gang-led massacre in the La Saline slum in November, human-rights investigators raised a number of concerns about the abuses committed against residents and the alleged involvement of government officials..

The allegation involving Delva raises questions about the credibility of the Haitian Parliament, which has been derided as “legal bandits,” given the number of lawmakers with criminal histories. It also underscores concerns about the collusion between those in power in Haiti and gangs. In a detailed U.N. report on a gang-led massacre in the La Saline slum in November, human-rights investigators raised a number of concerns about the abuses committed against residents and the alleged involvement of government officials..

At the time of his arrest, Joseph was preparing to head into surgery for a wounded leg when specialized Haiti National Police units swooped into Bonne Fin hospital in Les Cayes and arrested him. Laying on the ground naked as reporters took photos and videotaped him, Joseph said in Creole that his leg had been wounded during a shootout with a rival gang, Ti Sourit.

Considered Haiti’s most wanted fugitive, Joseph had spent more than a year eluding police as his gang terrorized residents in Port-au-Prince’s Village de Dieu slum and in the Artibonite Valley, where earlier this year the gang attacked a police station

On Wednesday, Joseph was released from a local hospital, after finally having surgery on his leg, and into the custody of the judicial police. That same day, Police Chief Michel-Ange Gédéon, who has been lauded for Joseph’s arrest, announced the arrest of nine other members of Joseph’s gangs. Gédéon and his top brass also appeared before the Senate in a closed-door hearing to discuss the current state of security and Joseph, who police said raised tens of thousands of dollars through ransom-kidnappings and other criminal activities.

During the hearing, police were also questioned about the allegations concerning Delva. Delva was present during the questioning.

“The polices said they were 98 percent certain Sen. Delva is involved in kidnapping with Arnel Joseph,” said Sen. Patrice Dumont, who was present during the questioning.

Dumont said that based on police revelations, he wrote to the Senate bureau asking that Delva, who serves as vice treasurer, not continue to assume the role. Dumont said the Senate’s internal rules do not permit him or any other senator to ask Delva to resign or for them to remove his immunity, which all Haitian lawmakers have. The Senate, he said, can vote to authorize Delva to present himself before the courts, should a Haitian judge ask him to. something Dumont said he’s prepared to do if a judge were to ask.

“There is just too much evidence,” Dumont said.

AG RACINE LEADS MULTISTATE COALITION CHALLENGING TRUMP’S MOVE TO GUT PROTECTIONS FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS FLEEING PERSECUTION

21 Attorneys General Argue Changes to Asylum Standards Violate Federal Law and Judicial Precedent

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Attorney General Karl A. Racine today led a group of 21 State Attorneys General to challenge the Trump administration’s proposed changes to asylum standards. If implemented, these changes would allow the Executive branch to arbitrarily deny asylum claims to immigrants seeking haven from domestic or gang violence. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in Grace v. Barr before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, AG Racine and his counterparts argue that these stringent revisions—which would effectively bar asylum claims based on domestic or gang-related violence—go against longstanding federal law and judicial precedent, undermining the rule of law itself.

“Denying asylum to people fleeing persecution in their home countries will mean forsaking victims of gang and domestic violence, particularly vulnerable women and children, to unspeakable fates,” said AG Racine. “We cannot allow this administration to abandon our values for the sake of their unlawful, fear-based agenda. Our coalition of State Attorneys General is urging the Judiciary to police the administration’s compliance with longstanding statutes and legal precedents, which these changes seek to undermine. The president may believe that he is above the law, but his administration must still follow it.” 

The District of Columbia and partner states filed this amicus brief in Grace v. Barr, in support of the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Trump administration’s heightened asylum standards. The lawsuit was first filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, the ACLU of Texas, and the ACLU of D.C., in response to a policy former Attorney General Jeff Sessions implemented in June 2018. 

Sessions articulated this policy change in Matter of A-B-, while intervening in the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA)’s decision to grant a Salvadoran woman asylum based on her claim of spousal abuse. In his ruling, Sessions broke sharply from existing precedent to argue that BIA should reject asylum claims regarding domestic or gang violence. Shortly after, the United States Customs and Immigration Service issued guidelines for implementing this policy, emphasizing denial of such claims.

In December 2018, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia struck down the change, ruling it incompatible with existing law. The Department of Justice is now appealing the ruling in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In this amicus brief, the states collectively argue that the District Court’s decision to reject the administration’s heightened standards should be upheld, on the basis that:

• The standards violate established federal law: A near categorical bar to asylum claims based on domestic or gang violence, as Matter of A-B-recommends, would illegally prevent victims of such violence from attaining asylum protection. The asylum process is rooted in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Among other things, that legislation makes it legal for anyone who arrives at the U.S. border to apply for asylum over a “well-founded fear of persecution” in one’s home country. Subsequent court cases have validated the legitimacy of claims made based on gang or domestic violence.
• The standards are inconsistent with state, federal, and international policies protecting victims of violence: All 50 states have enacted provisions in their criminal and civil codes to protect victims of domestic violence, and the federal government has acknowledged the need to assist immigrant women who have been victimized by domestic violence. Both have dedicated programs and resources to gang violence prevention.Furthermore, in signing the 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, the United States vowed to protect individuals escaping persecution. The Trump administration’s policy clashes with these commitments.
• The standards restrict states’ abilities to grow their economies: Immigrants make significant contributions to the economy, and American society more broadly. This is evident in D.C., where more than one in seven residents, and one in six workers, is an immigrant. It’s also borne out in study after study, and through recent experience nationwide. For example, nearly half of all new residents in the Great Lakes region between 2000-2015 were foreign-born, arriving at a moment when the region’s population growth lagged behind the national average. This influx of foreign-born residents boosted jobs and wages in the region. Given that the majority of asylum grantees are of working age and can contribute to a state’s economic activity, the Trump administration’s standards would limit states’ access to a valuable source of labor.

AG Racine is leading today’s friend-of-the-court brief and is joined by Attorneys General from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

The brief as filed in Grace v. Barr is available at: https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-08/Grace-v-Barr-Amicus.pdf

This is the latest effort by AG Racine to protect established federal immigration policy, defend asylum rights, and stand up for immigrants in the District and nationwide. In 2018, AG Racine led a similar coalition of states in filing an amicus brief in this case, then referred to as Grace v. Sessions, while it was under review in the District Court for the District of Columbia. He also joined with other Attorneys General to take action against the Trump administration to protect public safety funding for “sanctuary” cities; prevent attempts to close the Southern border to asylum seekers; block immigration-related conditions on law enforcement grants; stop a cruel family separation policy; keep longtime District residents from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras from losing their protected status; fight for hard-working “dreamers” to stay in the United States; and to oppose the “Muslim travel ban.”

###

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) works to protect and defend District residents, enforce District laws, and provide legal advice to D.C. government agencies. Karl A. Racine leads OAG as the first elected Attorney General of the District of Columbia. Visit www.oag.dc.gov to learn more.