Biden must keep his word to end Trump’s nightmare policies toward Haiti and its people | Editorial

President-elect Joe Biden is inheriting a world of trouble. The Middle East is a persistent security hotspot. China seeks to be the center of the economic universe. In addition, European allies, rebuffed and insulted by the outgoing Trump administration must be assured that the United States, once again, has their backs.

Closer to home, Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro hasn’t budged from power, and Cuba still is repressive Cuba.

Then there’s Haiti. It must not be an afterthought.

President Jovenel Moïse has been ruling, disastrously, by decree since dismissing Parliament in January. Just recently, he stripped the nation’s independent government-corruption watchdog agency of its powers.

Candidate Biden pledged to Haitians and Haitian Americans that the island not only would have his attention, but also be the beneficiary of common-sense and compassionate U.S. policies. Coming on heels of the Trump administration giving Haiti the back of its hand, Biden must follow through to show his integrity. And if his policies are good for Haiti, they will be good for South Florida and, especially, Greater Miami.

Violent gangs

Biden’s platform pledged to “engage the international community and work with the Haitian government to hold elections as soon as possible.” This is crucial. Moïse has dangled the prospect of elections in front of the Haitian people only to jerk them away, never coming up with a date and making them conditional on another yet-unscheduled vote on a new constitution. Meanwhile, the Trump administration wants Haiti to hold legislative elections in January, a ridiculously short timeline. Both the administration and Moïse have been far less vocal about the gangs that, according the Herald’s Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles, have been on a rampage in poor neighborhoods — kidnapping, raping and killing at will. How is anyone supposed to campaign, much less vote, in communities held hostage by murderous gangs? Moreover, neither elections nor a new constitution will solve Haiti’s biggest problem: the lack of security.

Biden’s platform also promised to: immediately review the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Biden should do more than review termination. He should revoke it, relieving those Haitians who have been eligible for TPS and contributed greatly to their communities of the uncertainty about as to whether they can stay.

He also promises to reinstate the Haitian Family Reunification Parole program, created in 2015. It allowed 8,300 beneficiaries of DHS-approved immigrant visa petitions, on wait lists of up to 13 years in Haiti, to join their relatives near the end of that period. Without getting their visas any sooner, they could apply to wait for them up to two years earlier in the United States. They then could work and send home life-saving remittances. Trump, predictably, eliminated this worthwhile program. Biden should restart and expand it.

Local leaders speak up

Biden pledged to reverse a regulation that limits student visas for Haitians to two years and implement effective oversight of how U.S. government funds to Haiti are spent — to ensure that money goes directly to assisting the Haitian people.

Last month, 82 leaders serving Haitian-American communities across the state co-signed a letter to Biden with some additional — and legitimate — asks, including restoring Haiti to the list of among the nations whose citizens can get H-2A and H-2B temporary-worker visas. Trump arbitrarily removed Haiti from the list, doing damage to the ability for Haitians on the island to receive remittances from relatives employed in the States.

The president-elect also should rescind a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order designed by Trump’s anti-immigrant czar Stephen Miller — and forced on the agency over its scientists’ objections as unnecessary. Steve Forester, immigration policy coordinator for the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, told the Editorial Board that this misbegotten order has caused expulsions to skyrocket — 197,000 as of Sept. 30 — in an end run around U.S. immigration and asylum laws. These “Title 42” expulsions have resulted in a 15-fold increase in the volume of ICE flights to Haiti in just two weeks in October.

Cholera compensation

The 82 leaders’ letter also asks that the Biden administration urge the United Nations to compensate the victims of the cholera epidemic, which its troops introduced to Haiti in 2010; support International Monetary Fund relief to help developing nations cope with the COVID pandemic’s economic impacts; and urge authorities in the Dominican Republic to protect the rights of its citizens of ethnic Haitian descent.

The Trump administration will soon end. The Biden administration can and should promptly reverse its arbitrary, inhumane and reckless policies and adopt others rooted in a respect for justice and fairness. This will be in keeping with one more pledge from the president-elect’s campaign platform: “Ensure that Haiti and the Haitian people are treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve.”