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Sent: Saturday, October 1, 2016 6:51 AM
Subject: [NIEM] EUA, México e América Central: migração de haitianos
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ ultimas/2016/09/29/ incapacidad-global-sobre- ;
migracion-de-haitianos-experto
Incapacidad global para atender migración de haitianos: experto
Antonio Heras, corresponsal | jueves, 29 sep 2016 16:30
Cientos de africanos y haitianos llegaron a Tijuana para pedir asilo político a
Estados Unidos. Foto Cuartoscuro / Archivo
Mexicali, BC. La crisis humanitaria rebasó todos los escenarios posibles: el
gobierno de Haití no tiene capacidad para atender a los miles de caribeños que
son deportados de Estados Unidos y el gobierno de Baja California no está
preparado para hacer frente a la llegada de migrantes extranjeros que se
incrementa cada mes, sostuvo el presidente del Comité Ciudadano de Defensa de
los Naturalizados y Afromexicanos, Wilner Metelus.El activista mexicano, de
origen haitiano, advirtió que el origen del fenómeno migratorio que se presentó
desde fines de abril en Tijuana y Mexicali es por la situación económica y
política que se vive en este país caribeño a raíz del terremoto de 2010, pero
principalmente a los escasos trabajos que han otorgado Brasil, Venezuela, Chile
y Colombia a partir de este año.Sostuvo que se agotaron las oportunidades que
brindaron los gobiernos de algunos países sudamericanos y europeos para dotar
de estudios y empleos a los migrantes haitianos.El padre Alejandro Solalinde
dijo que nadie detendrá la migración del sur ya que este flujo se debe a que
históricamente los países del norte han saqueado a los países del sur, como
ocurre en el caso de América con Estados Unidos y los países europeos con los
africanos.Agregó que lo que a principios de año era una situación de
emergencia, ahora se convirtió en una crisis por lo que se requiere la atención
del gobierno federal pero también de Naciones Unidas.Metelus informó que en dos
meses arribaron a Tijuana y Mexicali para solicitar asilo político al gobierno
de Estados Unidos más de 2 mil 300 extranjeros centroamericanos y africanos,
pero reveló que en la frontera sur de México están varados alrededor de seis
mil haitianos en espera de resolver sus problemas de recursos económicos para
emprender el viaje a Baja California, además que es latente el riego que se les
venza el permiso de 20 días que otorga las autoridades migratorias mexicanas a
los extranjeros que están en tránsito por el país.El activista reconoció que
este fenómeno migratorio representa un problema mayor para los tres órdenes de
gobierno mexicanos, toda vez que las autoridades sólo tienen capacidad para
atender el flujo migratorio de sus connacionales por lo que solicitó a
instancias nacionales e internacionales que asuman un compromiso de ayuda
humanitaria con los extranjeros que se encuentran en tránsito por México por
medio de “becas para estudiar, trabajo o apoyo durante su estancia mientras
esperan internarse por la vía legal a Estados Unidos”.Wilner Metelus pidió
solidaridad a la comunidad de Mexicali y Tijuana ya que los caribeños y
africanos “no vienen a delinquir ni tienen enfermedades extrañas, simplemente
buscan una oportunidad de una vida mejor, porque en sus países la situación
económica es crítica”, expresó.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09 /23/world/americas/haiti-migra ;
nts-earthquake.html?emc=edit_t nt_20160926&nlid=60329195&tnte mail0=y&_r=0
PhotoMigrants, including Haitians, waited in May to enter the United States at
the San Ysidro crossing that links Tijuana, Mexico, with San Diego.
CreditGuillermo Arias/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMEXICO CITY — The
Obama administration, responding to an extraordinary wave of Haitian migrants
seeking to enter the United States, said on Thursday that it would fully resume
deportations of undocumented Haitian immigrants.After an earthquake devastated
parts of Haiti in 2010, the United States suspended deportations, saying that
sending Haitians back to the country at a time of great instability would put
their lives at risk. About a year later, officials partly resumed deportations,
focusing on people convicted of serious crimes or those considered a threat to
national security.But since last spring, thousands of Haitian migrants who had
moved to Brazil in search of work have been streaming north, mostly by land,
winding up at American border crossings that lead to Southern California.Few
have arrived with American visas, but nearly all have been allowed to enter the
United States because immigration officials were prohibited, under the modified
deportation policy, from using the so-called fast-track removal process often
employed at the border for new, undocumented arrivals.Instead, the migrants
were placed in a slower deportation process and released, with an appointment
to appear in immigration court at a later date, officials said. Since early
summer, most have been given permission to remain in the country for as long as
three years under a humanitarian parole provision, immigrant advocates
said.With the full resumption of deportations, which took effect on Thursday
morning, Haitians who arrive at the border without visas will be put into
expedited removal proceedings.Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security,
said in a statement that conditions in Haiti had “improved sufficiently to
permit the U.S. government to remove Haitian nationals on a more regular
basis.”While Mr. Johnson’s statement did not mention the recent influx of
Haitians along the southwestern border, Homeland Security officials, during a
conference call with reporters, cited the migrant wave as the other major
factor in the administration’s decision.Since last October, officials said,
more than 5,000 Haitians without visas have shown up at the San Ysidro crossing
that links Tijuana, Mexico, with San Diego. By comparison, 339 Haitians without
visas arrived at the San Ysidro crossing in the 2015 fiscal year.An additional
4,000 to 6,000 Haitians were thought to be making their way from Brazil,
immigrant advocates in San Diego and Tijuana said, based on estimates from
shelters along the Brazil-to-Mexico migration route.The message to those
Haitians from the Obama administration, however, seems clear: Turn around or go
elsewhere.An uptick in deportations might not occur immediately. Removals
require the cooperation of and paperwork from the receiving country, and
Homeland Security officials said they were still in talks with the Haitian
government about the policy shift.In the meantime, officials said, nearly all
Haitians stopped at the border and scheduled for accelerated deportations will
be put into detention centers.Officials clarified, however, that asylum law
would continue to apply to newly arriving Haitians. A migrant who feared
returning to Haiti because of the threat of persecution or torture would be
interviewed to determine whether that fear was credible. If an immigration
officer determined it was, the immigrant could apply for asylum.Haitian
immigrants covered by temporary protected status would be unaffected by the
change in policy.Over the summer, the unusual surge in Haitian migrants was
accompanied by an equally unusual surge in migrants from more than two dozen
other countries, nearly all traveling along the same arduous routes from South
America, across as many as 10 borders.The migratory wave has overwhelmed
shelters along the way, particularly in Tijuana, where the shelters have been
at or over capacity for much of the past four months, while also struggling
with language and cultural barriers. Some migrants, because they were unable to
find accommodations or wanted to avoid shelter living, have chosen to sleep on
the streets.Haitians started migrating to Brazil in large numbers after the
earthquake. Haiti was reeling, but Brazil was ascendant, and it had a need for
cheap labor, especially with the World Cup and the Olympics approaching.
Haitians, with few prospects at home, were happy to oblige.Thousands of them
made their way to Brazil, where many were granted humanitarian visas that
allowed them to work.But amid Brazil’s economic and political convulsions over
the last two years, many Haitians lost their jobs or sank deeper into
poverty.The migration north began in earnest during the spring, with a large
influx in Tijuana in late May, and the surge has continued.The Haitian migrant
population has mainly consisted of men, though many women have made the trek,
too, as have children and even newborns. They have mainly taken an elaborate
series of bus rides, though migrants also had to travel at times by foot, truck
and boat, and have hired smugglers to help sneak them across certain borders or
avoid law enforcement officials.They have told of highway robberies,
frightening encounters with armed gangs and beatings. Some migrants have died
during the trip, many being swept away while trying to ford swift-moving
rivers.The shift in American policy caught advocates in San Diego and Tijuana
by surprise.“It was a complete and utter shock,” said Ginger Jacobs, an
immigration lawyer and the chairwoman of the San Diego Immigrant Rights
Consortium. “We are pretty baffled by what appears to be a complete 180 in
terms of policy.”She added, “We object to a policy change that doesn’t appear
to reflect any actual change in reality.”Margarita Andonaegui, the coordinator
of a main migrant shelter in Tijuana, said that on Wednesday afternoon she had
received what sounded like heartening news: The American authorities were going ;
to increase their processing capacity for the Haitians, to 150 per day from
50.But in light of the new deportation policy, that piece of information took
on another meaning.“They’re going to receive them to deport them,” Ms.
Andonaegui said. “That’s bad news.”
https://www.letemps.ch/monde/2016/09/25/tijuana-reve-americain-ravive-haitiens-africains
A Tijuana, le rêve américain ravivé des Haïtiens et des Africains
Concentrés dans la ville frontalière, les migrants viennent de plus en plus
loin pour gagner les Etats-Unis. Depuis fin mai, les responsables des refuges
de Tijuana affirment avoir reçu plus de 5000 demandeurs d’asile haïtiens ou
africains, qui ont remonté la moitié du continent américain depuis le Brésil
-
Un mur grillagé, des ponts qui se chevauchent, une bannière étoilée qui bat le
vent: il n’y a que la frontière pour tout paysage depuis la morne rue Melchor
Ocampo, à Tijuana, où une centaine d’hommes musardent. Tous leurs regards s’y
portent: au bout d’un de ces ponts, le poste-frontière de El Chaparral est leur
destination. Adossés au mur jaune du réfectoire «Padre Chava», attendant leur
tour pour le petit-déjeuner, où assis sur le trottoir d’en face, à l’ombre des
arbres maigrichons, ils sont ceux que Tijuana a baptisé «les nouveaux
migrants».Haïtiens, pour la plupart, ou Africains, généralement Congolais ou
Ghanéens, ils ont une originalité supplémentaire, par rapport aux migrants
mexicains et centraméricains qui prennent habituellement leurs quartiers dans
cette ville frontalière: ils viennent du Brésil, où ils ont vécu et travaillé,
économisant pour payer leur voyage. Aujourd’hui, ils débarquent par autobus
entiers à Tijuana, après avoir traversé près de dix pays.
Après un périple de tous les dangers, l’incertitude
«Je suis parti du Brésil il y a deux mois et demi», raconte Michel Kinkino, 27
ans, originaire du Congo Brazzaville. Il porte plusieurs chemises superposées,
héritage d’un long voyage, effectué en bus et à pied. «J’ai passé six jours à
marcher dans la forêt pour passer de la Colombie au Panama. On a faim, on a
soif, et il y a beaucoup de voleurs. En chemin, je devais attendre que ma
famille m’envoie de l’argent pour continuer. Le plus difficile, c’est le
Nicaragua, car ce pays ne nous laisse pas passer. J’ai dû payer un passeur 1300
dollars depuis le Costa Rica.»Parmi ces migrants, auxquels se joignent en
Amérique centrale des Cubains en route vers le nord, certains sont morts en
cours de route, noyés au passage des rivières, ou victimes de maladies. La
plupart vont rejoindre leur famille installée aux Etats-Unis. Mais au bout du
chemin, c’est l’incertitude. Surprises par ce phénomène, les autorités
migratoires américaines ont interrompu la réception des demandeurs d’asile
début septembre. Depuis quelques jours, ils passent à nouveau, mais au
compte-gouttes.
Refuges bondés
«C’est une affluence impressionnante», décrit Margarita Andonaegui, religieuse
fondatrice du réfectoire, un ancien entrepôt transformé en soupe populaire.
«Nous sommes saturés, nous avons installé des lits partout. Les agents
d’immigration mexicains accompagnent progressivement des groupes à la
frontière. Mais lorsqu’ils en emmènent vingt-cinq, il y en a trente autres qui
arrivent. Et quand ils sont quarante à partir, cinquante autres attendent à la
porte…»Le réfectoire sert plus de mille repas par jour, principalement aux
Mexicains expulsés par le voisin américain et aux indigents qui vivent dans le
lit du canal asséché et dans les tuyaux d’évacuation en béton, à quelques
mètres de là. De juin à septembre, plus de 2500 «nouveaux» ont mangé à ces
tables, la majorité provenant d’Haïti, et les autres du Congo, du Ghana, du
Cameroun, de Somalie, du Nigeria ou du Sénégal. Quelques Pakistanais et
Arméniens, ainsi qu’un Irakien, y ont aussi été hébergés. La situation est
similaire dans les quatre autres refuges pour migrants de Tijuana.Au centre
Madre Assunta, tenu par des religieuses de la congrégation scalabrinienne, les
femmes discutent entre elles alors que leurs enfants jouent sur les balançoires
installées dans la cour. Refoulées elles aussi par les autorités américaines
ces derniers jours, elles disposent presque toutes d’un ticket qui leur fixe
rendez-vous à une date ultérieure.«Dans quelques jours, nous allons tous nous
rendre en même temps à la frontière, les gens vont dormir sur place pour
passer. C’est une immense émotion et un espoir car nous avons tellement
souffert pour en arriver là», confie Mary, une Haïtienne de 28 ans. Après un
mois et demi sur les routes avec son bébé, né au Brésil, elle est arrivée à
Tijuana. A Rio de Janeiro, elle avait travaillé pendant six ans comme
réceptionniste.
Au Brésil, l’accès à des visas humanitaires
Ces dernières années, le gouvernement brésilien avait octroyé des visas
humanitaires aux citoyens haïtiens, suite au tremblement de terre de 2010, et
africains. A la faveur de l’organisation de la Coupe du monde de football en
2014 et des Jeux olympiques cet été, ils y trouvaient aisément du travail. Dès
que celui-ci a manqué, ils sont repartis vers le nord. En cours de route, il
arrive que les Haïtiens se fassent passer pour des Africains, car ces derniers
sont moins fréquemment expulsés du Mexique et rapatriés dans leur pays.
Lorsqu’ils franchissent la frontière, ils demandent l’asile aux Etats-Unis mais
invoquent surtout des raisons économiques, et non politiques ou sécuritaires,
pour migrer.Lorsqu’ils entrent au Mexique par le Chiapas, à la frontière avec
le Guatemala, les autorités mexicaines délivrent à ces migrants un
laissez-passer d’une durée de vingt jours, temps suffisant pour gagner Tijuana,
et de là, les Etats-Unis.
«Pour eux, le rêve américain ne s’est jamais épuisé»
«Nous ne voulons ni les encourager ni les inhiber», affirme Carlos Mora,
président du Conseil d’attention aux migrants, qui dépend du gouvernement de
l’Etat de Basse-Californie. «Ils resteront les bienvenus chez nous, mais il
faut qu’ils sachent que les Etats-Unis ne vont pas leur ouvrir les portes»,
nuance ce responsable mexicain. Les autorités américaines les reçoivent, le
temps d’analyser leur dossier. A Tijuana, on estime que tant que les Etats-Unis
ne procéderont pas à des expulsions massives, le mouvement continuera.«De
l’autre côté, les Haïtiens sont d’abord placés en centre de détention, mais
beaucoup sont ensuite libérés. L’information parvient à ceux qui sont au Brésil
et les motive à passer par ici», analyse Amanda Pinheiro, une chercheuse
brésilienne de l’Université de Santa Barbara, en Californie, qui étudie cette
nouvelle diaspora haïtienne. «Pour eux, le rêve américain ne s’est jamais
épuisé», affirme-t-elle.
4500 dollars de voyage
«J’ai des études à faire, j’ai tout un avenir devant moi. Je n’allais pas
gâcher tout cela en restant en Haïti», explique Kébreau Seydon, un étudiant de
21 ans. Durant un peu plus d’un an, il a travaillé sur des chantiers au Brésil,
avant de suivre la diaspora haïtienne vers le nord. Il a déboursé plus de 4500
dollars américains pour effectuer ce voyage.Pour ces migrants, il n’y a pas
d’investissement trop élevé. Au pied du mur qui sépare Tijuana de San Diego,
ils manifestent tous la même conviction inébranlable que les Etats-Unis leur
ouvriront les portes et leur offriront du travail et un avenir.
http://www.miamiherald.com/new s/nation-world/world/americas/ ;
haiti/article103920086.htmlseptember 24, 2016 8:33 AM
New migration: Haitians carve a dangerous 7,000-mile path to the U.S.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/new s/nation-world/world/americas/ ;
haiti/article103920086.html#st orylink=cpy
By Jacqueline Charlesjcharles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TIJUANA, Mexico A desperate and dehydrated Berline Monelus was deep in the
swampy, snake-infested jungle after eight days of walking when the skies opened
up. Her boyfriend was moving quickly, carrying their 1-year-old daughter,
Thaina, while Monelus lagged behind, losing sight of them.She reached a river
crossing.“I didn’t know which way go to,” she said. She stood with her
3-year-old son in the rain-soaked wildness bordering Panama and Colombia and
began to cry.As she stared into the rushing waters, another migrant on the same
northern path walked up and volunteered to ferry the boy across on his back.
Monelus, 24, handed the child over, instructing Jhonslay Joseph, Jr., to hold
on tight. It was the last time she saw him.His last words still ring in her
ears. “All I heard was Mamãe, Mamãe,” — Portuguese for “Mama” — she said, as
the river’s deceptively strong currents loosened his tiny grip, sweeping him
off the stranger’s back and swallowing him whole.She nearly drowned, too, but
another traveler pulled her to safety. For two days, she refused to leave,
searching the river’s edge for her son. She found another body, but it wasn’t
Jhonslay. After the second day, members of the group who had stayed to console
her forced her to keep moving.“I didn’t know the route had this kind of risk,”
Monelus said, holding back tears as she sat in a Mexican hotel room not far
from the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana, two days before her appointment with
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “Had I known, I never would have taken
it.”After decades of crossing the Florida straits on a 700-mile trip in rickety
boats to flee poverty and political turmoil, Haitians have carved out a new
route to get to the United States. It’s a staggering 7,000-mile journey that
starts in Brazil — which opened its doors to Haitians after the devastating
2010 earthquake — and cuts through South and Central America, traversing 11
countries and costing thousands of dollars a head in fees to people smugglers —
coyotes in Spanish, passeurs in French — to find the way across closed borders.
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The tragedy of the latest Haitian migration trend
A Haitian-American activist who has helped more than 3,000 migrants since May
talks about the tragic stories behind their treacherous journey.Jacqueline
Charlesjcharles@miamiherald.comIn recent months, an increasing number of
Haitians have been attempting the trek — by mini-van and bus, in overcrowded
canoes and on foot — desperate to get to the U.S. border. Mostly young and
despairing over the lack of progress in Haiti, they are looking north for hope,
joining thousands of violence-fleeing Hondurans and Salvadorans, asylum-seeking
Cubans and undocumented migrants from Congo, Mali and as far away as Nepal
along a circuitous route to San Diego, California.Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Director Sarah Saldana told Congress Thursday that 40,000 Haitians
are in transit. So far, nearly 5,000 have made it, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security officials said.Those who reach the San Ysidro Port of Entry a few
miles from downtown San Diego wind up in immigration detention centers first
and then — until Thursday’s shift in U.S. Haiti deportation policy — are
usually paroled into the country with temporary papers. Even so, they prefer
the uncertainty of life in the United States to anything in Haiti or
Brazil.“The document you have states that at any time, any decision can be
taken,” said Ones Alcenat who, like most of the arriving Haitians, headed to
Florida after spending five days in immigration lockup and another 15 at a San
Diego-area church, Christ United Methodist & Ministry Church in Normal Heights.
“Being on American soil is a dream for everyone.”The unprecedented flow of
Haitians across the California border can be traced back to late May, when
migrant advocates in Tijuana were summoned by Mexican authorities to help with
the startling number of arrivals from the Caribbean island. At the same time,
other countries along the path were awakening to the new migration pattern.+
Panama, which had allowed safe passage to migrants, in May blocked its border
crossing at the Darién Gap, where Monelus lost her son. The unforgiving,
mountainous section of jungle is home to Colombian FARC rebels, drug
traffickers, indigenous Indians and poisonous snakes.The closure left thousands
of migrants, including many Haitians, stranded in Turbo, Colombia, where
migrants usually boarded boats to get through the difficult stretch. Last
month, Panama reopened the passage.But those who get through face another
hurdle: the border of Costa Rica with Nicaragua. That’s where a penniless
Rodlen Jean-Baptiste has spent the last six months. He’s tried five times to
cross Nicaragua to reach Honduras and eventually Tijuana — without
success.“Life is like that,” said Jean-Baptiste, 26, bitter at his circumstance
but grateful he’s still alive. “There are people who died on the route and I
haven’t.”Each time he’s been sent back, he returns to the same refugee camp in
Peñas Blancas near the northern border of Costa Rica with “thousands of people,
not just Haitians.”But Thursday’s decision by the U.S. government to re-start
deportations of Haitians — a practice that had been suspended since the 2010
earthquake — is making him rethink his plan to have his father send him money
to try again.“If I could go back to Haiti from here, I would. When I was in
Haiti, I didn’t suffer this kind of misery,” Jean-Baptiste said. “I am not
interested in going back to Brazil. I was there and it didn’t benefit
me.”Jean-Baptiste is part of what the leaders of Panama and Costa Rica are
calling “a migration crisis” and others characterize as an example of shifting
global migration patterns. The dangerous exodus that has swept Europe with
migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Italy is a now a new reality in
South and Central America, they say.
Dangerous trek
The trip through the Americas is a treacherous one. Migrants can spend anywhere
from four to 20 days walking through the dense jungle, where Monelus says she
spent more than a week without food because her provisions ran out.More than
two dozen migrants interviewed by the Miami Herald in Tijuana, San Diego and
Miami say they employ both high- and low-tech skills to find their way across
borders, over mountains and past state security forces. Social media, including
Facebook and the WhatsApp messaging system, help them find information from
others who have gone ahead. But the most basic systems work, too: Remnants of
clothing tied to trees along the way help them locate the trail in the
wilderness.They also admit to hiring the smugglers who stalk jails, refugee
camps and border crossings. They promise safe passage for a negotiable but
hefty fee. The trip can last two to four months and end up costing anywhere
from $2,500 to $13,000, depending on negotiating skills, migrants said.Monelus,
who spent four months to reach Mexico, says she lost a total of $2,350 from
three failed attempts to cross Nicaragua. On the fourth, she hired a smuggler
for $1,000. He got her to Honduras on foot and then on horseback. Monelus’
mother paid for both trips, the first to Brazil five years ago and the most
recent one to get to California, by selling a plot of land and a family store,
Monelus said.When she finally made it out of the jungle and into Panama City,
Monelus called home. She told her parents what happened to her son. They cried.
They had never met the boy.“I didn’t feel I had the strength to go on,” she
said, but they urged her. “My father said to continue on. Returning to Haiti
wouldn’t be good for me.”Haiti’s economy has been in a sharp decline since
2014. The World Bank is predicting economic growth to be at less than 1 percent
this year, citing lower investments, the uncertain political environment and
struggling agriculture sector after a severe drought.Foreign aid has plummeted,
too, from more than $2 billion in 2011 to barely $250 million this year. The
domestic currency also has taken a hit, and the country’s public debt has
swelled. Foreign investments have dropped to about $100 million for each of the
last four years.Facing this dismal reality, Haitian families on the island are
bankrolling the aspirations of those brave enough to try their luck in other
countries. They take out loans at exorbitant rates, put homes up as collateral
and sell land and livestock. They see the money as an investment like a college
education, hoping it will pay dividends one day.They wire funds when migrants
get stuck. Because Haitians have learned to ditch their passports and assume
Congolese identities — on the theory that it will be more difficult to deport
them — migrants often have to rely on a trafficker or someone else to receive
the money on their behalf. Those middle men often charge a 10 to 20 percent
service fee.Those who carry cash hide it in the leg hems of jeans, the seam of
a backpack or the flap of a tennis shoe. Still, migrants tell harrowing stories
of women being strip-searched and even raped, of phones ripped from their hands
and thousands of dollars lost to robbers in cahoots with smugglers or
bribe-seeking police officers along the route.“I wouldn’t wish this route on
anybody because it is really dangerous. It’s not easy. A lot of people have
lost their lives,” said Monelus, who spent 13 days in a Mexican jail after she
crossed its southern border with Guatemala. “We left Brazil and we were four.
Now we are three. This really makes me sad. I really regret taking the trip.
”For most, the journey begins in Brazil, once a rising Latin American power
that gave Haitians special residency after the earthquake but now a country in
recession.“Every day, Haitians are leaving,” said Joanes Decembre, a father of
five who moved to Brazil in 2013 and sent for his wife 11 months
later.Decembre, 39, had hoped to make a life in Brazil, and even helped form an
association on behalf of Haitians in Porto Alegre, a city in southern Brazil.
But then the economy tanked. Work became harder to find and paid a lot less.His
breaking point came when one of his daughters called. “She needed $100 for
school. I didn’t have it. I was working and I didn’t have it.”Decembre decided
to make his way north. He raised the money by taking a loan against his house
in Haiti, selling livestock and collecting unemployment from his job. He told
his Brazilian landlord that he had a family emergency back in Haiti, a lie he’s
not particularly proud of. The man, a bus driver, offered to take him to the
border. There were 11 other Haitians on the bus with him, all trying to
leave.Decembre’s troubles began quickly. In Ecuador, he was threatened with
deportation after authorities refused to recognized a transit document he
bought for $20 in Peru. In the jungle, he got lost, crossing “what looked like
the same river must be 1,000 times.”He was in a group of 50 who decided to make
their way north without paying indigenous tribes along the way. Eventually,
they noticed the tied-on clothing markers to guide them during five days
walking through the Darién Gap.But it took mental toughness and, sometimes,
physical strength. When his wife, Ginette Victor, told him she couldn’t go on,
he wouldn’t let her give up. “She was in front and I was behind pushing her. At
one point, I put her on my back to get through a river.”
Misery, arrival or death
The jungle is test of will for migrants, a place where Haitians on the journey
have witnessed both kindness and selfishness. Those unable to keep up — often
young mothers like Monelus — sometimes are left behind. Others times, unity is
strength.During Decembre’s trip, the group reached a mountain crossing but
Victor, his wife, was too dehydrated to keep walking. A father carrying an
infant pulled out a baby bottle, added powdered milk and water from his supply,
mixed it and gave her and nine others a drop.“It was a huge gesture,” Victor
said, “as if it had come directly from God. I feared I was going to die from
thirst.”The man and his child have yet to reach the end of the journey, Victor
said. They remain stuck on the border of Costa Rica, broke.The couple
eventually made it through Nicaragua in the back of a cement truck, paying
$1,800 to be dropped off at Honduras’ border. Decembre showed photos on his
cell phone of himself and Victor, dirty and sweating inside the sweltering
vehicle.“There are only three options when you take this route,” he said,
“Misery, arrival or death.”In Honduras, Decembre’s funds finally ran out. There
were no more loans from family members. He called Haiti and sold the last of
his animals.“Even now, I am not even sure if my kids will be able to enroll in
school,” he said last month, shortly after arriving in San Diego, yearning to
take his first bath in days. “We spent all of the money.”
The shakedown
Governments throughout the regions have denied that their police officers are
extorting money from the vulnerable travelers, instead saying gangs are passing
themselves off as officers.Doris Meissner, a former Immigration and
Naturalization Services commissioner and current fellow at the Migration Policy
Institute, said migrants’ experiences with shakedowns along the route is “a
classic problem of weak law enforcement, justice systems and the corruption
laced throughout the systems.”But governments may be part of the problem. Some,
like Costa Rica and Mexico, provide transit documents but complain that the
migrants are using their countries as transit points. The countries
rationalize, Meissner said, that the migrants, “all want to get to the United
States so why should we be spending our money?”“You have a lot of contradictory
policies,” she said. “All of these things are characteristics of why there has
to be a much more collective, concerted approach with a lot more cooperation,
collaboration in the region.... Issues of migration are no longer just a
U.S.-Mexico phenomenon.”In Costa Rica, the decision to provide migrants with
food and healthcare has angered the surrounding population. Earlier this year,
thousands of undocumented Cuban migrants had to be airlift out of the Central
American nation to El Salvador and Mexico after 7,800 of them became stranded
from November 2015 to March.“Our communities... are a bit tired after what
happened with the Cubans who stayed here for about five months,” Costa Rican
Foreign Minister Manuel González told McClatchy last month.Costa Rica President
Luis Guillermo Solís said the overwhelming majority of those crossing his
territory lately have been Haitians. Initially, he said, Costa Rican officials
thought they were West Africans since many of them went by the same name:
Muhammad Ali.“We realized the French they spoke was not western African French.
It was Creole,” Solis said. “And then we realized most of them were coming from
Haiti.”Haiti’s leaders say they are well aware of the frustrations of regional
leaders over the influx of Haitians moving through their territories. The
number of Haitians in Ecuador has gone from 2,600 to 40,000, for example, said
Haiti’s foreign minister, Pierrot Délienne. In Chile, there are more than
60,000 and in Brazil, 95,000.Last month, during an interview in his
Port-au-Prince office, Délienne said French Guiana was preparing to deport
2,800 Haitians. Weeks later, Suriname, similarly flooded with Haitians, began
requiring visas.Changing visa rules isn’t the solution, said Délienne. His
ministry has launched a campaign on radio and television and local churches
telling Haitians: “Home is better.”“We have to block these trips at the source,
which is here,” he said. “We’ve become a migrating people because there is no
stability, no work in the country. The country has no economy. If the economy
is working , people will find work.”Most Haitians arriving in the U.S. are
between 18 and 40, a lost generation with no hope for Haiti.Monelus still had
two years of high school when she left for Brazil in search of a better life.
Her work assembling chairs in a Brazilian factory paid her the equivalent of
$260 a month, barely enough for rent. She didn’t get a chance to “even send a
cent to Haiti,” she said. Like others along the route, she spent more time in
Brazil looking for work than she did working.Wilguer Jean-Baptiste, 24, arrived
in São Paulo last year after applying for a visa at the Brazilian Embassy in
Port-au-Prince. As he stood in line in Tijuana on a hot August morning for an
appointment with U.S. border authorities, he started calculating how much the
risky voyage had cost. He estimated $5,000 — money he said his parents borrowed
at loan-shark rates.“It’s a huge burden,” he said. “I know that if I were sent
back to Haiti, there is no way I would be able to repay the money. The first
thing I have to do when I reach the United States is to start working so I can
get this burden off my back.”Jean-Baptiste said he wishes he had known when he
went to apply for a Brazilian visa that the construction jobs that existed
before the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the Olympics were no longer available.“A lot
of people are always fighting in the line in Haiti just to find a visa,” he
said. “When they arrive, they can’t even afford to pay rent.”He was unemployed
during his entire stay in Brazil.“I had a few friends who helped me out and
when they couldn’t anymore I had to seek help from a church,” he said. “I saw
things were so difficult that I decided to take my chances.”
A better life
The Brazilian Embassy issues about 2,000 visas a month. The cost is $260.
Despite the problems in Brazil, demand is still high. There is a three month
wait for an appointment.“The leaders here don’t create the opportunities for
the population to work,” said Mackenson Louis, who was dropping off an
application at the visa center on a recent morning. “I am 33 years old. I’ve
done all of my studies and I can’t find work. You have no choice but to leave
to go in search of a better life somewhere else.”Brazil’s ambassador to Haiti,
Fernando Vidal, told the Herald that he hopes Haitians who go to Brazil find a
reason to stay there. “We created the legislation in Brazil only for Haitian
people. What we want is for them to come to our country, feel at home and stay
there...find job opportunities in my country.”The special benefit is up for
review next month.“There is always the possibility of not renewing it if there
are reasons that justify it,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t happen.... But the
day that we conclude that it’s not working anymore, it might change.”At the
other end of the route, in Tijuana, four shelters house arriving migrants. The
Desayunador Salesiano Padre Chava soup kitchen is the biggest draw, after
migrants sent word via social media. Hundreds of Haitians hang out on its
sidewalk and yard, most with no idea of what to expect once they cross into
U.S. territory.But on many of their phones: the name and number of Pastor Jean
Elise Durandisse, the head of the Haitian ministry at the Methodist Church, who
has been helping arriving migrants after they are released from lock up.“They
know where we are. We cannot hide from them,” Durandisse said, inside his
church office. “We try the best we can but we cannot keep up. It’s
heartbreaking to see your brothers and sisters like this.”Some think that the
paper given to them by immigration authorities with a three-year expiration
date is proof of Temporary Protected Status, the benefit given to tens of
thousands of Haitians by the Obama administration after the earthquake. It is
not. The document is a record of their parole, letting them know that they’ve
been temporarily allowed in pending a final decision by an immigration
judge.“The problem with social media is its also gives the wrong information,”
said the Rev. Pat Murphy, who operates the Casa Migrante shelter in Tijuana.
“They may send a picture from Tijuana saying ‘We’re almost there,’ not knowing
how far away they are from asylum. You’re at the border but there is no
guarantee you’re going to get asylum.”Across the border in Normal Heights where
the church is located, reality is beginning to sink in.Most days for the last
few months, about 200 migrants line up for a hot meal or to learn about U.S.
etiquette and pick up practical tips, like how to cover the ankle bracelet that
border officials put on migrants without papers to keep track of them. The
volunteers who are part of the Haitian Bridge Alliance also try to track down
family members — though the news that relatives have arrived isn’t always
welcomed.This week, the church reached its breaking point. The migrants had to
be temporarily moved to two facilities that will only be available for two
weeks. On the other side of the border in Tijuana: Hundreds of waiting
Haitians.Volunteer Guerline Jozef shook her head: “I don’t know what the next
step will be.”Jozef helped Ones Alcenat, a 29-year-old Haitian who made the
trek from Brazil and then to Miami in August. He had hoped to live with
relatives but they turned him away. Jozef and others paid for a hotel room and
then found him a one-room efficiency in a trailer park.He knows others aren’t
so lucky. One recent South Florida arrival, for example, is homeless and seven
months pregnant. She spends two nights a week sleeping on the sofa of friends.
Another has gone to a different state after friends would no longer house
him.Alcenat, who has enrolled in English classes to sharpen his skills and
dreams of getting a college degree, said the reality isn’t exactly what he had
hoped for.Recently his younger brother called. He’s in Brazil, and he was
asking about the trip.“When you tell people how tough it is, most of the time
they will not believe you,” he said. “They always think the U.S. is heaven on
earth. I think the U.S. is a land of opportunity. When you live here, there are
a lot of opportunities for you to thrive. You can achieve your dreams but you
need to know what you’re doing. There are also a lot of very dark times in
here.”McClatchy Washington Bureau Latin American Affairs Correspondent Franco
Ordoñez contributed to this report.
[mensagem organizada por Helion Póvoa Neto]
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