A hastily created U.S. policy to curb irregular migration at the United States’ border with Mexico is having unintended consequences in Haiti, one of the four countries whose nationals can apply for the program and where the Biden administration is spending tens of millions of dollars to help the police take on heavily armed kidnapping gangs.
Ever since the Biden administration on Jan. 5 announced that the U.S. will allow up to 30,000 migrants a month from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to lawfully enter as part of a new parole program, thousands of Haitians have been flocking to immigration offices seeking passports in order to be considered for sponsorship by family and friends in the U.S.
Lines in Haiti are so long and disorderly that employees at the Directorate of Immigration and Emigration in the capital often can’t even get through the front door, and U.S. citizens with adopted Haitian children complain that they cannot find appointments to apply for passports required for their children to come join them, the final step in an already arduous process. So many Haiti National Police officers are applying to leave that the head of the immigration office last week announced a separate location just for officers and their families to drop off applications.
