Haitian Deportees in the News–Part One

Here is an interesting article from The Boston Globe about the issue of Haitians convicted of crimes in America being deported back to Haiti:

By Amy Bracken, Globe Correspondent | March 11, 2007

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As the Haitian government struggles to bring security to its chaotic capital, many Haitians say the United States is aggravating the crime problem by quadrupling the number of criminal deportees to their native country.

Tensions have risen after a recent wave of kidnappings and high-profile slayings in Port-au-Prince, including the abduction, torture, and killing of a 20-year-old woman studying to be a teacher. It was in the midst of this rash of violent crime that the United States increased the deportation of Haitians, both illegal immigrants and legal-resident criminals who had served sentences, from 25 to 100 deportations per month, adding substantially to the more than 2,000 already deported to Haiti from the United States over the past five years.

The deportees have caused fear and anger, and spurred a debate over how to deal with them. Government officials favor jailing — at least temporarily — all deportees arriving in Haiti. But human rights leaders argue that such detentions are illegal and harmful and that what deportees need is help getting a foothold in Haitian society.

Some of the government’s detractors call deportees a convenient scapegoat for officials under fire for failing to bring stability to the capital.
Haiti is not the largest recipient of US deportees in the Caribbean; Jamaica has had a consistently higher rate in spite of its smaller overall population. And many countries in the region have seen a steady rise in criminal deportations since the United States passed the Antiterrorism Act in 1996, making it harder for convicts to appeal deportation orders.

But Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere, has a weak police force, a barely existent judiciary, and overcrowded and unruly prisons. It is widely seen as ill equipped to deal with any extra bad apples. That’s why the United States suspended criminal deportations to Haiti from 2005 into 2006, during the interim government that followed the bloody uprising and ouster of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

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