Trump's cruelest act yet

The State Department has the nation of Haiti under a “Level 4 – Do not travel” advisory, due to the relatively high risk of “crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care.” The entire advisory reads like the script for a dystopian sci-fi film describing a chaotic, violent failed state run by criminal gangs. Americans at the embassy in Port-au-Prince rarely leave the compound, and family members don’t accompany them on this assignment. The only U.S. planes that can land in Haiti there are those carrying Haitian citizens who have been living in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, which has now been revoked under the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy. These returnees are likely to become targets of the criminal gangs who effectively control the country.

Reutersreportedjust last week that at least 47 people were killed and 22 injured in an “overnight gang raid on a neighborhood overlooking Port-au-Prince. That kind of violence is frequent, and to the extent Haiti still has a functional police force, they can do little to stop it. The country is awash in firearms. The U.N. has authorized aGang Suppression Forceof 5,500 armed personnel from various Caribbean and African countries, who will work with what’s left of the Haitian government to tamp down the violence. That force is expected to be on the ground in October, but no one seems to hold out much hope that it willsolve the problem anytime soon.