The migrants issue is once again at the core of the latest diplomatic crisis in the United States of America. Washington’s special envoy to Haiti has resigned in protest against the Biden administration’s policy of deporting thousands of migrants back to the Carribean nation from a camp on the US-Mexican border. Daniel Foote, a career diplomat who was appointed to the post barely two months ago, said conditions in Haiti were so alarming that US officials were confined to secure residential complexes.
The country, which in his reckoning is a “collapsed state”, is unable to support what he calls the “infusion of returning migrants”. Mr Foote appears to have unequivocally ruptured his connection with the State Department. “I will not be associated with the USA’s inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants,’’ he said in a letter to the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, one that was circulated on Thursday. Haiti, which happens to be the poorest country in the western hemisphere, has weathered profound instability in recent weeks, notably a presidential assassination, a major earthquake, and almost endemic gang violence.
It is a measure of the enormity of the humanitarian tragedy that the United States has deported more than 2,000 migrants from the camp in Del Rio, Texas, to Haiti. Additionally, 3200 people have been shifted for processing away from the encampment, according to the Department of Homeland Security. This shifting to Haiti reached its peak on 18 September when there were an estimated 15,000 people present on the border. Others have left the dustry riverbank for Mexico to avoid being sent home.
The international confusion gets worse confounded with the warning advanced by the head of the UN refugee policy, Filippo Grandi. Specifically, he has warned that the US expulsions to Haiti might violate international law.
The crisis is, therefore, a cocktail of a humanitarian tragedy, diplomatic qualms, and the law that governs dealings between nations. While receiving Mr Foote’s resignation, the State Department has let it be known that Washington was committed to the long-term well-being of Haiti, as well as offering help to returning migrants.
The resignation follows increasing pressure on the Biden administration ~ both from the United Nations and fellow Democrats ~ over the treatment of Haitians in what has been described as the “sprawling impromptu migrant camp”. One Democratic Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, lashed out at the administration saying what the world had witnessed on the border was worse than anything seen during the slavery of blacks.
The humanitarian issue ought to have been settled by President Biden in consultation with the State Department, the diplomatic corps, and also of course the representatives of the hapless migrants as they intitiate the search for a roof over the head The
resignation of the US special envoy is indubitably a setback.