Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem says allowing Haitians to remain is ‘contrary to US national interest’
The Trump administration has once again moved to halt humanitarian protections for Haitians living in the US, this time announcing that their temporary protected status (TPS) will expire on 3 February.
According to a new Department of Homeland Security notice issued on Wednesday, TPS for approximately 340,000 Haitian migrants will be terminated next year.
Continue reading...Presidents spoke on a video call as expert speculates that Haiti could be an area where the two leaders can cooperate
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country’s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a “friendly” video call, swapping phone numbers after months of friction.
Ties between the US and Brazil have nosedived as a result of Trump’s campaign to pressure Brazilian authorities into abandoning the coup trial of his far-right ally, Jair Bolsonaro.
Continue reading...Unit will have up to 5,500 soldiers and police officers who will tackle the violence that has overwhelmed the country
The United Nations has adopted a resolution to transform a security mission in gang-dominated Haiti into a larger, fully fledged force with military troops.
The new unit can now have a maximum of 5,500 uniformed personnel, including police officers and soldiers, unlike the current mission, which is just law enforcement. The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, said the vote by 12 security council members to “transform the multinational security support (MSS) mission to the new gang suppression force, a mission five times the size of its predecessor” showed the “international community was sharing the burden”.
Continue reading...Fishing village of Labodrie reportedly set on fire after killing of a gang leader in sign of rising violence outside capital
The UN secretary-general has condemned the reported killing of at least 40 people during an attack by armed gangs in a fishing village north of Haiti’s capital.
Media in Haiti widely reported that the attack took place on Thursday night in Labodrie. It is another sign of escalating gang violence that has spread outside the capital.
Continue reading...Homeland security had tried to end temporary protected status granted by the Biden administration
A federal judge on Friday ruled against the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.
The ruling by US district judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means that 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire on 10 September have status to stay and work in the United States.
Continue reading...Irish aid worker and director Gena Heraty was taken along with seven Haitians, including a three-year-old child
An Irish aid worker and seven fellow captives have been released nearly a month after they were kidnapped in Haiti.
Gena Heraty, a missionary who ran the Our Little Brothers and Sisters orphanage in the hills outside Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, was abducted on 3 August along with seven Haitians, including a three-year-old child.
Continue reading...Critics say Vectus Global’s presence – including snipers – will undermine Haiti’s police and UN security force
Hundreds of combatants from the US, Europe and El Salvador will reportedly be deployed to Haiti in the coming weeks to battle the country’s gangs as part of a mission led by the controversial Blackwater founder and Donald Trump backer Erik Prince.
According to Reuters, Prince’s new security firm, Vectus Global – which has been operating in the violence-ravaged Caribbean country since March – is preparing to intensify its activities there to help authorities win key roads and territories back from heavily armed criminal groups.
Continue reading...An Irish missionary and three-year-old child are among eight people taken by gunmen who stormed the place
Ireland’s foreign ministry has called on Haitian authorities to ensure “everything is done” to secure the release of a group of people, including an Irish missionary and a three-year-old child, taken by gunmen who stormed a local orphanage.
Simon Harris, the Irish foreign minister, spoke with his Haitian counterpart overnight, the government said in a statement, during which they agreed to stay in touch on their work to ensure the group is released, including missionary Gena Heraty who oversees the orphanage.
Continue reading...Somalia, DR Congo and Yemen among states forced to sign deals and barter their minerals for aid or military support
Some of the world’s poorest countries have started paying millions to lobbyists linked to Donald Trump to try to offset US cuts to foreign aid, an investigation reveals.
Somalia, Haiti and Yemen are among 11 countries to sign significant lobbying deals with figures tied directly to the US president after he slashed US foreign humanitarian assistance.
Continue reading...Homeland security secretary attempting to end legal status for approximately 521,000 Haitian immigrants
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s bid to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for approximately 521,000 Haitian immigrants before the program’s scheduled expiration date.
Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded Joe Biden’s extension of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians through 3 February. It called for the program to end on 3 August, and last week pushed back that date to 2 September.
Continue reading...Trump administration revokes temporary protected status for citizens of country racked by deadly violence
More than half a million Haitians are facing the prospect of deportation from the US after the Trump administration announced that the Caribbean country’s citizens would no longer be afforded shelter under a government program created to protect the victims of major natural disasters or conflicts.
Haiti has been engulfed by a wave of deadly violence since the 2021 murder of its president, Jovenel Moïse. Heavily armed gangs have brought chaos to its capital, Port-au-Prince, since launching an insurrection that toppled the prime minister last year. On Tuesday, the US embassy in Haiti urged US citizens to abandon the violence-stricken Caribbean country. “Depart Haiti as soon as possible,” it wrote on X.
Continue reading...UN rapporteur calls for move as food deliveries are attacked and starvation becomes a weapon of war in Gaza and Sudan
UN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.
With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations.
Continue reading...Ruling reverses hold on Trump administration’s ending humanitarian parole of Venezuelan migrants and others
The US supreme court on Friday announced it would allow the Trump administration to revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States, bolstering the Republican president’s drive to step up deportations.
The court put on hold Boston-based US district judge Indira Talwani’s order halting the administration’s move to end the immigration humanitarian “parole” protections granted to 532,000 people by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal from the country, while the detailed case plays out in lower courts.
Continue reading...A fraught history of race and immigration connect the new pope with his homeland
Pope Leo XIV, who on Thursday was elected as the first-ever US-born leader of the Roman Catholic church, has a familial bloodline that reflects his homeland’s fraught relationship with race – and why the nation’s stature as a melting pot of origins has long endured, records unearthed by genealogists show.
The maternal grandfather of 69-year-old Robert Prevost, the newly minted pope, was evidently born abroad in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, according to birth records that professional genealogist Chris Smothers cited to ABC News in a recent report. When Leo’s grandfather, Joseph Martinez, obtained an 1887 marriage license to wed the future pope’s grandmother, Louise Baquié, he listed his birthplace as Haiti, which at the time was the same territory as Santo Domingo, Smothers noted.
Continue reading...Rubio calls Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif ‘threat to US national security’ and says support for groups could lead to charges
The United States has designated a powerful Haitian gang alliance, whose members have taken control of almost all the capital city as a “transnational terrorist group”.
The criminal coalition known as Viv Ansanm (Live Together), and another faction, the Gran Grif gang, which in October took responsibility for a shocking massacre of at least 115 people in the agricultural town of Pont-Sondé, were both covered by the move on Friday.
Continue reading...France imposed harsh ‘ransom’ after revolution that campaigners say stunted Caribbean country’s development
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has announced a joint commission with Haiti to examine the countries’ shared past as Haitian campaigners demand a reimbursement of billions of dollars worth of “ransom” paid to France.
Macron announced his intention to create the commission as campaigners renewed calls for reparations on the bicentenary of an agreement to pay 150m francs to France in 1825 to compensate slave-owning colonists after the Haitian Revolution.
Continue reading...Move takes effect on 24 April as president weighs also stripping parole status from some 240,000 Ukrainians in US
Donald Trump’s administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice on Friday, in the latest expansion of his crackdown on immigration.
It will be effective on 24 April.
Continue reading...UN agency says more than half of the displaced people are children, as gang attacks see upswing in Port-au-Prince
More than 1 million people have been forced from their homes in Haiti amid a sharp upswing in gang attacks in the country’s embattled capital, Port-au-Prince, the UN has said.
The UN’s migration agency, the IOM, said that never before had such a large number of Haitians been reported to have been displaced by violence. More than half of those internally displaced people (IDPs) were children who were bearing the brunt of Haiti’s security breakdown. Many had been displaced repeatedly.
Continue reading...UN Human Rights Office adds that 2,200 were injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped as international mission struggles
More than 5,600 people were reported killed in Haiti last year, the UN has said, as an international mission led by Kenya struggles to contain rampant gang violence.
The number of killings increased by more than 20% compared with 2023, according to the UN Human Rights Office. More than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped, it said.
Continue reading...Gunmen target press conference at Haiti’s largest public hospital after street gangs forced its closure earlier this year
Two reporters and a police officer were killed and others injured on Tuesday when armed men opened fire on a group of journalists who gathered for a government press conference scheduled to announce the reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital.
Street gangs forced the closure of the State University of Haiti hospital early this year and authorities had pledged to reopen the facility in the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Christmas Eve. But as journalists gathered to cover the event, the gunmen opened fire.
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