Haiti, never stable in its 200-year history, is in total chaos today. Armed gangs are in control of the streets, and its US-backed prime minister, Ariel Henry, is in exile in Puerto Rico. Last week, gangs stormed the country’s main prison, killing some inmates and releasing 4,000 others. Since then, vicious murders have skyrocketed, and cannibalism is even being reported.
The most powerful man in Haiti is now said to be one Jimmy Chérizier, a former police officer turned gang leader who goes by the name “Barbecue” due to his penchant to burning his victims alive in the street. Chérizier fancies himself a modern-day Robin Hood and speaks of his admiration for Fidel Castro, Malcolm X, and Thomas Sankara, the former communist president of Burkina Faso who was assassinated in 1987. In an interview, Chérizier added that he “like[s] Martin Luther King, too,” though he prefers violence as his own methodology for effecting social change.
More than 15,000 people in Haiti have fled their neighborhoods and are now homeless, and food and water are running out. The situation has sparked renewed efforts by Haitians to migrate. Haiti is one of nine countries whose citizens are eligible to use the CBP One smartphone app to skip the fuss at the border and fly into one of the 43 US airports where Biden is directing them there. (The other such countries are Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, and Ecuador.)
For those who can’t get through or can’t cadge a plane ticket from an NGO, there is always the maritime route. As noted here last week, Indian River County sheriff’s deputies and the Coast Guard intercepted a fishing boat off the Florida coast filled with two dozen illegal aliens from Haiti. Such attempts to reach the US shore are increasing. Eric Flowers, sheriff of Indian River, told CBS News: “I’m confident that there are boats coming through all the time that we don’t catch.”
State Department Secretary Blinken is attending an emergency meeting today with Caribbean leaders in Jamaica to discuss the situation. Don’t be surprised if the Biden administration opens all the wider the immigration door for Haitian nationals.