The Haitian Immigration Curse!
By: Lince Semerzier, Nosvoix Magazine
From a Haitian cultural prospective, when we talk about Diaspora, we often refer to those who are living in the United States or Canada. However, in the eyes of many we are all immigrants. Over the last 40 years, Haitian people have migrated to many different countries in search of better lives and opportunities for themselves and their families. No matter what country they end up in, whether legal or illegal residents, the experience of humiliation, injustice and discrimination remain the same.
2011 has been a very difficult year for Haitian immigrants both in the U.S and Dominican Republic. Imagine you are born in a country but because your parents had migrated illegally, the government denied you the basic human right to obtain a birth certificate which is the most essential document that can give you access to resources and services (e.g., school registration, getting basic services and identification card).
Imagine having migrated to a country at the age of 2 years old, going to school, working, marrying, having children, and then one day Immigration Custom Enforcement (ICE) shows up at your house, arrests you in front your kids (for a non violent crime you committed years ago) and one month later you get deported to Haiti without having a chance to say good bye to your family. Upon your arrival, you are detained in horrible hazardous conditions in a jail cell with 50 other inmates. To make matters worse, you have no relatives there, and you can’t even speak Creole.
These are some of the realities facing many Haitians living in the Dominican Republic (DR), United States and other countries. Every country has the right to have their own immigration policies; however when that same policy solely targets one particular group of people because of their nationality this becomes an act of injustice and discrimination.
Earlier this month, hundreds of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian decent demonstrated in front of the DR Supreme Court. They demanded the Dominican government reverse its 2007 ruling confiscating and annulling birth certificates for residents of Haitian descent by Central Electoral Board.
No one in the Haitian Diaspora community was more passionate about these issues and dedicated their whole lives fighting them than Sonia Pierre. Her sudden death came as a shock to the Haitian community worldwide earlier this month (December 4, 2011). She was a feminist, activist, mother, grandmother, counselor, speaker, defender of human rights and humanitarian. Throughout her life, Pierre fought discrimination by founding MUDHA, the Movement of Dominican Women of Haitian Descent, in the early 1980s. The organization works to empower women in the Dominicain-Haitian community using educational programs. It also promotes labor rights, health care and legal education.
Pierre earned international attention when she spearheaded a campaign to reform the Dominican Republic’s birth registration system that blocks children of Haitian descent from receiving nationality and citizenship. Her work triggered threats and fierce media campaigns against her in the Dominican Republic. This fight has been going on for the past four years now. Some have made the following argument according to a Dominican Today Blog post:
“If a child of an illegal Haitian immigrant is born in a Dominican hospital, and is given a Birth Certificate, would that allow the parents to stay, in the way “anchor babies” do for illegal immigrants to the USA?”
“The Haitian government neglecting their population and denying proper maternity care for their citizens specially those that live around the border region.”
“A birth certificate can’t do any harm. The Dominican Republic should adopt a policy like the Turks and Caicos Islands, who also has a problem with illegal Haitians. They do grant a birth Certificate but it does not mean citizenship. This is so the Haitians can have no excuse in getting Haitians documents once the birth is properly established. And they also have an option to file for residency once they attain the age of 21 years.”
Regardless which side of the argument you favor, something has to be done. An estimated 1.2 million Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent are currently living in Dominican Republic. Following the January 2010 earthquake, Dominican Republic was the first nation to dispatch relief workers to Haiti. Critically injured Haitians were airlifted to DR hospitals and the government temporarily suspended its mass deportations of undocumented Haitians and allowing thousands to enter freely.
The Obama Administration granted a similar courtesy by temporarily suspending deportation of Haitians living in the U.S and granted Temporary Protective Status (TPS) to 30,000 Haitian Applicants living in the U.S. prior to the earthquake according to U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services (USCIS). An additional mandate of adjustment was made a couple of months later to allow some individuals who came after January 12, 2011 to qualify and granted 10,000 applicants with TPS status which raised the total to 40,000 applicants and collected more than $2 million in application fees for USCIS. However, one year later (January 2011) it resumed its policy with an aggressive plan to deport 700 Haitians convicted of crimes back to Haiti. Based on an email confirmation that I received this week (12/14/11) from Barbara Gonzales, spokeswoman for U.S Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) only 376 have been deported to Haiti from January to December of this year (2011). According to the Huffington Post, 75% of all Haitians who have been deported this year had no criminal convictions. A review of federal data shows ICE deported at least 2,684 non-criminal immigrants to Haiti from 2007 to 2010. As recently as 2008, 74 percent of all Haitian deportees did not have criminal convictions, according to the data. In the three months leading up to Haiti’s earthquake, 67 percent of deportees were non-criminals.
In life, sometimes we make some wrong choices which can lead us to take the wrong path. Our parents and loved ones always want and wish the best for us; they often risk their own life and sacrifice everything to make sure we have a better tomorrow. I’m not defending anyone’s actions of breaking the law, but some of these deportees had already paid for the mistakes and stupid decisions they made by time already served in jail/prison for something they did years ago. Others jeopardized their lives by getting shot by border patrols, bitten by wild animals, venomous snakes and other dangerous situations in hope of crossing the border in search for a better life.
Haitian deportees from the U.S., DR, Bahamas, Guadeloupe, Canada and everywhere all shared the same sentiment: they view immigration as a curse! They are husbands, wives, sons, daughters, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends, neighbors who were taken away suddenly to detention centers to be deported or dropped at the border (DR/Haiti) with no money and without a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones. For those who were working, they will never get their last pay check and employment benefits.
Sonia Pierre may be gone, but her spirit lives on, her work continues to inspire many activists in the Diaspora community to continue fight for justice, equality and dignity for those who are unable to defend themselves. Our government and leaders may have failed us but we have to keep on fighting. Fighting for funding to create or support nonprofit organization programs that benefit immigrants and deportees. Programs such as Chans Altenativ, as recommended by Guy S. Antoine. Chans Alternativ is a good starting point, and Michelle Karshan should be commended for her efforts. She brings rice, cooking oil, and whatever food staples she can afford to the jails, so the U.S. deportees, especially those without any other contact in Haiti, can eat. She also brings them books to read, and it was quite a sight to see those people converge on a pile of English language books, looking for a title, an author, or a topic, anything that would offer a moment of escape from their isolation in jail in a country that they left oh so many years ago, and for some, a country that they never knew. That seemed to sum up the definition of a cruel and unusual punishment, courtesy of the U.S. immigration policy.
Let’s not forget that the Haitian government has important role to play in this matter. It’s time to stop the lip service and move into action:
• Establish a constitutional mandate that will recognize all persons of Haitian descent as Haitians and to grant them full constitutional rights
• Require the U.S government to pay a deportation fee that will go towards programs that can help the transition process of these deportees
• Restructure the Haitian judicial process, (to allow a fair and speedy judicial process of fair treatment of deportees )
• Establish a regulatory commission that will work with DR government to come up with a strategic diplomatic plan to resolve this crisis
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