https://socialistaction.org/2018/02/09/haitians-denounce-president-trumps-shithole-remark/
Haitians denounce President Trump’s ‘shithole’ remark
/ 2 days ago
Feb. 2018 Haitians : Trump
Haitian American protesters demand that Trump apologize for his racist
remarks at his Mar-a-Lago, Fla., retreat on Jan. 15.
By MARTY GOODMAN
As if 200 years of U.S. racism and imperialism weren’t enough, Haitians
must contend with the idiotic rantings of the U.S. commander in chief,
Donald Trump. “Why are we having all these people from shithole
countries come here?” asked Trump at a Jan. 11 immigration meeting.
Trump was referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and African states, provoking
worldwide outrage. During the meeting he asked, “Why do we need more
Haitians?” “Take them out.” according to sources cited in a Jan. 12
Washington Post article. And that wasn’t enough for Trump, who added,
“Put me down for wanting more Europeans to come to this country. Why
don’t we get more people from Norway?”
Initially, the White House refused to deny the reports, but Trump
tweeted a denial the next day that merely admitted to non-specific
“tough talk” and added, “I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) confirmed the report, saying Trump used the
term “shithole countries” repeatedly; he called Trump’s rant
“hate-filled, vile, and disgusting.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
confirmed Trump’s “shithole countries” slander in a comment to the Post,
overheard by Sen. Tim Scott. Said Scott, Graham told the Post that the
remarks attributed to Trump are “basically accurate.” Even the United
Nations, usually under the thumb of U.S. imperialism, called Trump’s
remarks “racist.”
Trump’s arrogant “shithole” comments were made on the eve of the eighth
anniversary of the catastrophic Haitian earthquake, Jan. 12, 2010, which
killed up to 300,000 and injured many more in a country of 10 million.
Virtually every Haitian family was affected.
Trump: “They all have AIDS!”
On Sept. 16, 2016, candidate Trump said to a small gathering of Haitian
Americans in Miami, “I really want to be your biggest champion.” Many
recalled Trump’s empty promises after his Nov. 20 racist termination of
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 60,000 Haitians who fled in the
aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, a cholera plague, and a post-hurricane
Mathew Haiti. TPS Haitians support 250,000 relatives back home. Haiti is
in no condition to receive deportees!
The falsity of those promises was also demonstrated last June, at a
White House meeting on immigration, when Trump was presented with a list
of immigrants by country. After seeing that 15,000 had entered from
Haiti, Trump snarled, they “all have AIDS” (The New York Times, Dec. 23,
2017).
The astonishing ignorance and racism of Trump toward Haitians was a
throwback to the AIDS hysteria of the 1980s. At the time, the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning that “Haitians and
sub-Saharan Africans” were highly susceptible to AIDS and banned blood
donations by Haitians. Racist stereotyping exploded, but they were, of
course, lies. The FDA determination was removed in 1990, but not before
100,000 Haitians and supporters massed at the Federal Building in
downtown Manhattan and basically shut the city down in April
1990—proving again the power of mass action!
As if these attacks weren’t enough, Trump has vowed to keep open the
notorious Guantanamo, Cuba, gulag, which Obama pledged to close. The
early 90s struggle for the entry of HIV-positive Haitians imprisoned in
Guantanamo spawned a fight-back of Haitian activists and supporters and
AIDS activists in ACT-UP. A combination of street actions and legal
battles, led by attorney Michael Ratner, led to the release of the HIV
Haitians. Continuing Guantanamo as a human rights atrocity shows how
fleeting are victories under capitalism.
DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program was also ended on
Sept. 5 by Trump, affecting 800,000 children of “illegal” immigrants who
are now subject to deportation. Socialists say, “No one is illegal!”
“Defend TPS and DACA!” “Full citizenship for TPS Haitians and DACA
recipients!”
Concerning the “shithole” remark, Marlene Bastien of Haitian Women of
Miami told Socialist Action, “I think his comments were racist and
outright disrespectful. To make a comment like that would be out of
ignorance. Some people are feeling the impact on their children.”
“The U.S. owes so much to Haiti. One thousand free men came to shed
their blood in Savannah [Ga.] to fight for U.S. independence. Just to be
able to defeat Napoleon, who had the mightiest army at that time,
allowed the U.S. to double in size with the Louisiana purchase.”
On Jan. 15, Martin Luther King’s birthday, some 10,000 to 12,000 angry
protesters—including many Haitian immigrants—poured into Times Square in
Manhattan. The anger of the crowd was not matched by militant demands
and was muzzled by the presence of several capitalist politicians,
including “progressive” Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose housing policies
continue to force record numbers into homelessness. However, some
protesters marched up to Trump Tower at 56th Street and Madison Avenue.
Haiti Liberté journalist and activist Kim Ives spoke to Socialist Action
about the newly formed 1804 Movement, comprised of grassroots
organizations that met on Jan. 13 at the Haiti Liberté office in
Brooklyn. Present were 50 activists from the New York and New Jersey
area. Participating organizations include Le Caye, the Lavalas Family,
Haiti Solidarity Network in New Jersey, as well as leftist parties,
including Petit Dessalines, the Black Alliance for Justice in
Immigration, Haiti Liberté newspaper, and U.S. socialist groups.
On the cold morning of Jan.19, the 1804 Movement led a protest of
between 500 to 1000 Haitians and supporters who marched from Grand Army
Plaza in Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge to rally at the Trump
Building on Wall Street.
Haitian American unionist Marie Paule Florestal made these remarks: “The
1804 Movement for All Immigrants has chosen to demonstrate on Wall
Street because we condemn the politics of both Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton. We condemn both the Republican and Democratic parties. We
condemn the entire political and economic system which enslaves this
country, but also enslaves our countries, where our families and
compatriots are forced to work for pennies a day for U.S. corporations.
“If we in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, or Asia try to flee our
plight, to sell our smarts and labor elsewhere, we are arrested by the
U.S. Coast Guard or Border Patrol. In short, we are imprisoned in our
homelands. But the U.S. demands complete freedom to buy land, set up
businesses, and sell products there. Our sovereign nations are, in fact,
modern colonies, neo-colonies.”
In Haiti, Mario Joseph, a human rights attorney and a protest leader,
said, “On many occasions in the past we have been victims of imperialist
countries, particularly the United States.” Even Haiti’s corrupt Senate
on Thursday declared their country “is the expression of refusal to be
humiliated, since the founding fathers engaged in an epic combat against
slavery, colonialism, and racism to indicate to the oppressed peoples of
the world the way to freedom.”
One Port au Prince protest drew 2000. “Trump is a vulgar racist, and a
racist is a very poor-minded person,” said protester Marvel Joseph. “We
don’t feel any resentment against the American people, who we know
largely disapprove of Trump’s behavior in the White House.”
Batay Ouvirye (Worker’s Fight) in Haiti released a statement, which
reads in part: “For all peoples around the world, if they are calling us
shitholes, it’s the capitalist class that is the cause! Let’s coordinate
our struggles to overthrow and in this way uproot capitalism with all
its racism.”
More Trump racism
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Jan. 18 that people
from Haiti, Belize, and Samoa are no longer eligible to apply for H-2A
visas for farm work and H-2B visas for non-farmworker jobs. The
department said the nations had a high rate of fraud, abuse, and people
overstaying their visa time limits. The overstay rate for Haitians is
over 39 percent, out of roughly 1500 H-2 immigrant workers in 2016, the
DHS stated.
However, those DHS statistics about Haitians were disputed on the Young
Turks TV program, posted Jan. 25 (Huffington Post). Citing DHS figures
for “overstays” on H-2 visas in 2016, Haitians had, in fact, far fewer
in that category. Haitians were only 3.86% “overstays,” compared to
people from Afghanistan (13.7%) and Jordan (5.97%), to name a few. A Pew
Institute study of 2015 “overstays” found that Canada had 93,000
“overstays,” Mexico 42,000, Germany 21,000, etc.
The conclusion? The Trump administration lied about Haitians as revenge
for blowback after Trump’s “shithole” comments. The U.S. and Haiti need
revolution!
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February 9, 2018 in Caribbean, Immigration.
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