The U.S. Coast Guard interdicted more than 7,000 seaborne Haitian migrants last year, up greatly from the 1,500 in 2021. Although that number was dwarfed by the 60,000 Haitians who illegally crossed by land in 2022, nevertheless 7,000 apprehended on the high seas marked a huge uptick. This asks the question: Why are so many Haitians leaving and where else are they going?
The answer to the first is easy: Haiti has become a “hell on earth.” Chuck Holton of the Center for Immigration Studies wrote on March 1:
Nobody blames the Haitians for wanting to leave. The situation there is becoming more dire by the day. With not a single elected official left in Haiti’s government and the only effective power held by brutal street gangs, the country easily qualifies as a failed state. Millions of Haitians have fled the country in recent years, and everyone would leave if they could. In the Western Hemisphere, Haiti’s 11 million inhabitants suffer the worst rates of, well, everything: life expectancy, poverty, literacy rates, infant mortality. Violence and suffering are the only surety in this island nation only 600 miles south of Florida.
And where are they going, in addition to the United States? Most immediately, they are trying to get into the country with which they share an island: the Dominican Republic.
Holton writes that the closest border crossing to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince is at Jimani, a remote mountain village bounded on one side by mountains and on the other by Lake Azuei, the largest lake in the Caribbean. There, between border gates, is a 100-yard “free zone” where citizens of the two countries are allowed to mingle. Dominicans come here mainly to trade and barter; Haitians, to get out of Haiti.
Once, it was possible for them to simply walk around the Dominican gate to join the millions of their countrymen already there, most of them there illegally. That option has been recently closed off, however, as Dominican authorities have cracked down by building along the border what one official called “our Trump wall.” In addition, immigration police within the country have stepped up deportations of illegal Haitians. Last year, 162,000 were deported back to Haiti, a huge increase from the 31,000 removed in 2021.
Thus, the DR is becoming less accessible and less attractive to Haitians desperate to escape their homeland. Those still in Haiti as well as the illegal Haitian expatriates in the Dominican Republic are looking for alternatives and, as with migrants all over the world, their top choice is the United States.
The push to leave created by the total breakdown of Haitian society has been matched by the pull of remarks and policies of the Biden adminstration. One such new policy is the granting of 30,000 entry visas each month to Haitian citizens, who must apply for them through a special CBP telephone app. Holton writes that that announcement “caused a human tsunami at the U.S. consulate in Port-au-Prince,” as Haitians fought amng themselves for places in line.
With its new aggressive policy intended to discourage Haitian in-migration, the DR has taken steps to protect its citizens. The government of the U.S., however, the Holy Grail destination of the world’s excess, continues to open its gates, to spite its citizens.
For more, see CIS.org.