‘Like a kidnapping ransom’: Passport scammers exploit Haitian parole applicants
The first thing you need to apply for humanitarian parole in the U.S. is a passport from your home country.
That requirement is proving especially difficult if not impossible for many Haitians, as gang violence and political upheaval in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse more than two years ago has left the government in a state of chaos.
In January, Haitians were allowed to apply for a Biden administration humanitarian parole program designed to stem the crisis at the southern border by offering an alternative to the dangerous journeys many migrants make by land and sea.
Since, more than 98,000 Haitians have been approved for the program — the highest number admitted from the four eligible countries, according to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans are also among the 30,000 people per month approved for parole.
Still, many in Haiti who are desperate to access the parole program are facing long wait times for passports — and, worse, extortion from criminal “racketeers.” Haitians in Haiti and their sponsors, many of whom are here in South Florida, are paying exorbitant sums, ostensibly to expedite the processing of travel documents.
“It’s pretty difficult, given the current state of Haiti,” said Cassandra Suprin, a Haitian attorney with the nonprofit law firm Americans for Immigrant Justice in Miami, which provides legal representation to low-income immigrant families. “People know about this program, and a lot of people are stuck down there and want to have a passport in order to be eligible. There’s price gouging.”
Immigrant advocates warn these racketeers often do not deliver what they promise. Nevertheless, risky as it may be, this option is available only to those who can afford to pay.
“It’s almost like it’s a kidnapping ransom,” said Paul Christian Namphy, lead organizer for Family Action Network Movement, or FANM, a nonprofit providing legal and social services to immigrants in Miami.
“You are paying a bribe to someone who has an inside connection who is going to do something for you on the inside,” Namphy added. “And what you will see is multiple phases where you have to pay money.”
Many Haitian applicants are relying more and more on sponsors and host families to cover the basis.
“It’s like trying to buy your way out of that uncertainty. You’re paying a premium and a very expensive one,” he said. “And if you’re poor, you’re out of luck, because you can’t buy your way out.”
Through regular channels it currently costs about $200. But the racketeers charge a lot more.
“Some people have had to pay north of $1,000,” Namphy said. “That’s the reality.”
South Florida is home to the largest population of Haitian people in the U.S. Attorneys and advocates said people here are doing whatever they can to help their family members leave Haiti — including paying racketeers.
READ MORE: ‘Golden passports’: Sale of citizenship in Caribbean raises security concerns
Some “had to turn their lives around” to help loved ones apply for the parole program, said Clarel Cyriaque, a Haitian immigration attorney in Miami. For example, Haitians in South Florida are serving as sponsors for parole applicants, taking financial responsibility for them legally and often hosting and supporting them when they get here.
“They did so willingly and lovingly,” Cyriaque said. “But it is an extreme burden on them.”
The passport problems did not come as a surprise to attorneys and advocates. Cyriaque said he and others petitioned DHS for potential solutions, such as waiving the requirement for Haitians, accepting expired passports or “accepting a simpler, non-passport alternative Haitian document,” he said. “But no option was deemed workable.”
DHS declined to comment. As previously reported by WLRN, Nicaraguan advocates have also asked for passport waivers, to no avail.
Passport problem
Haitian community leaders in South Florida argue the passport problem was predictable and that the Biden administration should have taken steps to mitigate it when creating the parole program.
“We could have pinpointed some of these risks” because many Haitians have expired passports or have not traveled outside the country, said Namphy, from FANM.
The parole program caused demand for Haitian passports to soar, with requests more than tripling from 1,500 to 5,000 per day shortly after it launched, according to reporting from WLRN news partner the Miami Herald.
The backlog is leading to families being separated, because some Haitian parents have their own passports but don’t have them for their kids. The increased demand has also led to delays in adoptions of Haitian children to people around the world.
“All of a sudden, it became clear to corrupt forces in the Haitian public administration and cronies of theirs that this was a money-making enterprise,” Namphy said. “And what you then saw is legitimate processing of passports either ground to a halt or slowed to a trickle.”
As a result, Haitians began reaching out via WhatsApp to relatives in South Florida, asking them for money to pay racketeers. Some are ashamed to admit how much they have paid.
“They’ve been waiting months and months and paid an amount that they’re not really comfortable disclosing to try to resolve this problem,” Namphy said. It’s a “huge burden on people here who are trying to get people to safety, people that they love, who are trapped in Port- au-Prince.”
Cyriaque, who has worked as an immigration attorney in South Florida for three decades, credited the federal government for making improvements to the online registration system, which had experienced hiccups when the parole was expanded in January.
But, he acknowledged, the passport requirement is a major barrier for Haitians to apply, and that undermines the effectiveness of the program.
“People still report significant problems in terms of the length of time it takes,” Cyriaque said. And because of those long wait times, as well as fear of violence at official passport centers in Port-au-Prince, “you still have people depending on intermediaries to get their passports.”
“There is a continuing frustration among people, because the need is so great for people to seek safety,” he said.
The stakes are high for migrants desperate to escape Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — and for President Biden’s re-election campaign. In the WLRN News series Waiting for America, we take a deep look at a humanitarian parole program for people from crisis-torn countries in Latin America and the Caribbean — a key Biden administration immigration policy — one year later.
