White House battles Republicans in Congress over funding for police force to help Haiti

Kenya’s top leaders, hard at work trying to figure out how to get around a court ruling blocking a decision to send a thousand-strong force of police officers to help gang-ridden Haiti, think they may have a solution as early as next week.

But they will then face another hurdle: Who’s going to pay for all this?

The Kenyan force is supposed to be part of multinational effort, approved by the United Nations, to assist Haiti, but the question of how to pay for it has yet to be resolved.

The Biden administration, which was behind the effort in the U.N. to bring a group of nations together to help Haiti, is planning to pick up a large chunk of the tab, which is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. But the administration is facing skepticism from Republican leadership in Congress, further complicating a mission that has struggled to take shape for over a year as gang-related killings and kidnappings escalate in Haiti.

The U.S. has pledged up to $200 million to fund the Multinational Security Support mission, which is meant to be led by Kenyan police with contributions from Jamaica, The Bahamas and other Caribbean and African nations. Of that amount, the administration made an initial request for $50 million from Congress. Lawmakers partially released $10 million and then the administration countered by asking for $17 million to begin the process, according to sources familiar with the effort.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member James Risch (R-ID) have pressed for more details on the nature of the mission, putting a hold on the release of any additional U.S. funding until they get more information.

“The administration has yet to deliver on specific commitments it promised to Congress as part of the review process,” said Leslie Shedd, a spokeswoman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Risch’s staff did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Florida Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who serves as chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee with responsibility for foreign aid, said lawmakers need more information from the Biden administration, including their Plan B should Kenya be unable to lead the armed mission into Haiti.

“What I can say is there are legitimate concerns regarding the viability of the multinational force plan; particularly considering the recent Kenyan court ruling prohibiting the participation of Kenyan police. The Biden Administration needs to explain its contingency plan should Kenya no longer be assisting,” Diaz-Balart said. “I’m not ruling out a multinational force, but at this point there simply needs to be more information, along with further explanation to how much of a cost burden the Biden administration wants to assume. Haiti’s instability has repercussions beyond its borders to neighboring countries like the Dominican Republic, and of course the United States.”

The U.S. funding is seen in Nairobi as an initial investment that should lead to additional contributions from partners around the world. But Kenya’s ambassador to the U.N., Martin Kimani, said last week that the money has not been forthcoming and there remains “a substantial resource gap.” He did not single out the United States.

“Securing the widest possible support base is essential for making the mission truly multinational,” he told the U.N. Security Council.

The fight over funding is just the latest setback to the Haiti mission. Last week, Kenya’s High Court said that Nairobi could not deploy police officers outside of the country without a bilateral agreement with Port-au-Prince establishing a police-sharing agreement. The government said it would appeal the decision.

Speaking to a Reuters reporter on Tuesday, Kenyan President William Ruto said his government is working on addressing the court’s concerns “so that the mission can go ahead as soon as next week, if all the paperwork is done between Kenya and Haiti.”

In November, Ruto’s Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki told parliament that the mission was expected to cost $600 million for the first year, but that Kenya would not be footing the bill — and without some upfront funding, the officers would not be deployed.

“Kenya will not allow its troops to exit the Country for Haiti until all the required resources, including equipment and finances, are mobilised and availed,” he wrote on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, on Nov. 9. “No taxpayers’ money will be spent to deploy the 1,000 National Police Service Officers as part of the Multi-National. The cost of deployment will be borne by United Nations member states through voluntary contribution.”

The U.N. has established a Trust Fund to raise $237.55 million in donor contributions that Kenya said it needs for the deployment, plus equipment. It’s unclear how much has been volunteered other than a $3.26 million contribution France recently announced.

Following the Nairobi court decision, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said, “We need urgent action, we need urgent funding, and we hope that member states will continue to do their part and then some.”

Asked for an update on the status of U.S. funding for the force, a spokesperson at the White House National Security Council said the United States is “committed” to supporting the mission, which was officially approved by the Security Council in an October vote.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Musalia Mudavadi, Kenya’s Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora. Though unclear if the dire situation in Haiti and the security mission were discussed, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters the administration remains “hopeful” that the force will materialize.

“We continue to work with international partners, both Kenya and other international partners, about funding for that multinational police force and want to see it implemented as soon as possible,” he said.

The administration is closely watching developments out of Kenya regarding the fate of the force, John Kirby, coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council, told reporters the day before the Kenyan minister’s visit.

“We still believe that that kind of multinational security presence in Haiti is important. We’d still like to see it move forward,” Kirby said. “We’re obviously watching closely what happens in Kenya, but it’s really for the Kenyans to speak to.

“Regardless of how this comes out, it won’t change our central position that we believe some sort of multinational security force presence on the ground is important for the people of Haiti,” Kirby added. “They still are suffering the violence of these criminal gangs and thugs and organizations that are just literally making life almost impossible for the people of Haiti. So we still believe that’s important.”