Link to Article: https://latinamericanpost.com/38421-the-haitian-migration-crisis-will-impact-latin-america
Since the assassination of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moise, on July 7th this past summer, Haiti has been riddled with turmoil and unrest. Consecutive seasonal hurricanes, deep-seeded poverty, and concerns over human rights violations have all culminated into regular migration movements out of Haiti since the 2010 earthquake, consequently creating significant effects on other countries in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, Haiti has a very large population, over 11.4 million, that is beyond what is sustainable for the small island and the resources available to it, especially while its government is simultaneously battling corruption and gang violence. To escape this, Haitians have been dispersing throughout their migration routes, the majority hoping to make it to the US border. This is an extreme and expensive endeavor that, for some, means crossing the distance from Chile all the way to the Rio Grande, with most travel done by foot, including treks in the Uraba and Darien jungles while passing through Columbia and Panama. With the devastation that the pandemic has caused in Haiti that’s been exacerbated by the chaos of the assassination, a new surge of fleeing Haitians has arisen just this past year, with more than 14,000 Haitians photographed while attempting to cross the Rio Grande into the US. This drastic measure followed rough deportations of Haitians by US border agents in Texas, who denied the immigrants a chance to request asylum and claimed that they were upholding a public health law. This law, Title 42, was enacted during the Trump Administration to close US borders with the purpose to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to American citizens. These controversial deportations occurred despite the statement from the Secretary of National Security Alejandro Mayorkas’ in favor of aiding the immigrants and announcement of Temporary Protected Status of the Haitians.
The outcome of the United States’ decision on the immigration crisis will affect hundreds of thousands of immigrants waiting for admittance, as the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA has declared it is the missive of the Biden Administration to allow over 200,000 refugees to apply for asylum in the United States this year, calling the United States’ commitment to retain humanitarianism so far “a regrettable failure”. It is likely that the resolution to this crisis will be an indicator for future United States’ immigration decisions, and the ability of the Biden Administration to get new, expectedly liberal-leaning policies on immigration passed through Congress during the next four years of Biden’s term. For refugees such as the Haitians, this is paramount to their survival because they have staked everything on their ingress to the US, especially crucial savings on boat rides out of Haiti and across the Caribbean.
In connection to International Relations,the Haitian Migration Crisis is an issue encompassing nearly the entirety of Latin America as well as many countries in South America along with the United States. Haiti’s population and location serve to escalate its ability to affect the Western Hemisphere as it holds great potential that is suppressed by its ceaseless internal strife and struggle with poverty. The country is overflowing with the resource of human labor and is one of Cuba’s closest neighbors, where, should Cuba ever come into international conflict or become of stronger international concern, Haiti’s value in a prospective alliance to respond to the conflict would soar.