A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including Florida Republican Marco Rubio, are reintroducing legislation that would go after criminal gangs in Haiti and those in the country’s political and private sectors who collude with them.
The bill, the Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act of 2022, calls for robust sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act; annual reporting on the nature and magnitude of gang violence in Haiti; the connections between Haitian political and business elites and criminal gangs, and public access to that information. The legislation was first introduced last session in the House by Florida Democrat Val Demings, who lost her senatorial bid to unseat Rubio in the state’s congressional race in November.
While the bill relies on existing law, the aim of the legislation is to force the U.S. to expand its efforts to go after Haiti’s criminal gangs and their backers, which have not kept pace with similar efforts by the Canadian government, a congressional staffer said.
