A Senior U.S. Diplomat to Haiti Resigns, Protesting Biden Administration Policy - The New York Times

Full text of article:

A senior American diplomat who oversees Haiti policy has resigned, two U.S. officials said, submitting a letter to the State Department that excoriated the Biden administration’s “inhumane, counterproductive decision” to send Haitian migrants back to a country that has been wracked this summer by a deadly earthquake and political turmoil.

The diplomat, Daniel Foote, was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July, just weeks after President Jovenel Moïse was killed in his bedroom during a nighttime raid on his residence. Mr. Foote, a former ambassador to Zambia and acting assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, did not respond to messages for comment on Thursday morning.

In his stinging resignation letter, dated Wednesday, Mr. Foote criticized the Biden administration for deporting some of the thousands of the Haitian migrants who had traveled to the Texas border from Mexico and Central America in recent days.

“I will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life,” Mr. Foote wrote in the letter, which was first reported by PBS NewsHour. Its authenticity was confirmed by a senior State Department official and a congressional official.

Mr. Foote also blasted a “cycle of international political interventions in Haiti” that “has consistently produced catastrophic results,” and he warned that the number of migrants to American borders “will only grow as we add to Haiti’s unacceptable misery.”

In May, the Biden administration extended temporary protected status for 150,000 Haitians already living in the United States. The order was extended again for Haitians living in the United States before July 29. But tens of thousands more Haitians have attempted to cross into the United States since then, despite not qualifying for the program.

Mr. Foote was said to have pushed for greater oversight and responsibilities in his job as envoy to Haiti, efforts that were rejected by senior State Department officials. The department’s spokesman, Ned Price, on Thursday described proposals put forward, including by Mr. Foote, that “were determined to be harmful to our commitment to the promotion of democracy in Haiti and were rejected during the policy process.”

“No ideas are ignored, but not all ideas are good ideas,” Mr. Price said. He was responding to Mr. Foote’s claim, in his resignation letter, that his recommendations were “ignored and dismissed.”

“Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed,” Mr. Foote wrote.

The rise in Haitian migration began in the months after President Biden took office, when he quickly began reversing former President Donald J. Trump’s strictest immigration policies, which was interpreted by many as a sign that the United States would be more welcoming to migrants.

The U.S. Border Patrol said that more than 9,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti, were being held in a temporary staging area under the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas as agents worked as quickly as they could to process them.

About 1,400 Haitians have been deported since Sunday, with more flights scheduled for each day, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As of Thursday, there were around 4,050 migrants, most of them Haitians, still at the Del Rio bridge.

As many as 14,000 migrants are expected to be returned to Haiti over the next several weeks. Haitian officials have pleaded with the United States to grant a “humanitarian moratorium,” amid widespread instability.

But the Biden administration, facing the highest level of border crossings in decades, has enforced policies intended to slow the entry of migrants. On Monday, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said newly-arrived Haitians would not be covered by the temporary residence orders that were extended earlier this year.

“We are very concerned that Haitians who are taking this irregular migration path are receiving false information that the border is open or that temporary protected status is available,” Mr. Mayorkas said during a news conference on Monday in Del Rio, Texas. “I want to make sure that it is known that this is not the way to come to the United States.”

Officials at Haiti’s Embassy in Washington did not respond to messages for comment Thursday morning.

In a statement, the State Department thanked Mr. Foote for his service and said “the United States remains committed to supporting safe, orderly, and humane migration throughout our region.”

The statement said that the United States and the United Nations’ immigration agency was trying to make sure that Haitians who are deported are met at the Port-au-Prince airport and given a meal, a hygiene kit and $100.

“Over the long-term, the U.S. government is committed to working with the Haitian government and stakeholders across Haiti to strengthen democratic governance and the rule of law, increase inclusive economic growth, and improve security and the protection of human rights in Haiti,” the department’s statement said.

I don’t know how they’ve managed to bungle what should have been the easiest presidency ever after four years of chaos of trump, but they have. From confusing and questionable choices regarding the pandemic and mask mandates/booster shots, to the utter embarrassment of the Afghan withdrawal and the drone strike of innocent children, to the choice to negotiate with terrorists regarding our country’s infrastructure, Biden and the dems have done a tremendous job of pissing away the support they had going into 2021. Its kind of impressive actually.

Good for him. Its time the wealthiest country in the world stopped treating refugees at the border like garbage and started treating them like people. Many of the migrants from Central and South America are fleeing countries made unstable due in large part to U.S. interference. Deporting the Haitians seeking help is a death sentence for many of them. Unbelievable yet tragically believable.

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Honest question here, what the fuck do these disingenuous fucks want the US to do with these refugees? Seriously seems like damned if you do, damned if you don't.

To be clear I HATE border patrol I think after its actions over the last several years that it and ICE should be disbanded and their leadership shipped off the Hague to face Crimes Against Humanity, but what is the US supposed to do with all of the refugees when Qpublican states refuse to take them, and Qpublican "lawmakers" refuse to pass anything to help?

Every US Administration with maybe, possibly the exception of that of John Adams has had a purposeful and deeply injurious policy towards Haiti. If there is any other nation, any other people to whom we owe some moral or ethical debt such that our default attitude ought to be one of aid and generous consideration, it is probably Haiti and the Haitians.

And even if you think that America has no such debt, and that a realist theoretical construction of international relations precludes such debts being created, we surely can do better than, "We need more private prison contractors who speak Haitian Creole for our extraterritorial detention camp on that other Caribbean island we habitually fuck with."

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So many in this country desperately need to take a class in basic civics and when they do, hopefully they will learn how little power the Executive Branch has in many areas.