IJDH Immigration Policy Coordinator Steve Forester speaks to the Miami Herald about the Biden administration’s continued expulsions of Haitians.
“…Among a reported 368 Haitians returned to Haiti Thursday, there were 45 children, including a 9-day-old infant who was born in Mexico and sent to Haiti with her 29-year-old mother. They had spent six days in detention facilities in Arizona and Texas, said Steve Forester, the immigration-policy coordinator for the Institute of Justice & Democracy in Haiti.
Forester, a Haitian community and immigration activist who lives in Miami, harshly criticized the continued deportation of Haitians by the Biden administration, which has expelled more than 14,000 since January.
The expulsions ‘are obscene’ and lack humanity, Forester said. ‘Sending human beings to such conditions — 44% of them are women and children, including infants — dumping them there, it is completely against any notion of humanity,’ he said.
‘Haitians love their country and want to stay,’ Forester added. ‘But as long as conditions of desperation exist such as they are, inevitably people are going to seek to leave. The obligation, the challenge, the task for the United States is to finally get its policy right for Haiti. Instead of supporting corrupt, democratic leaders, we need to support the robust civil society that is ready with a plan forward….'”
Read the full article by David Goodhue and Jacqueline Charles in the Miami Herald here.