Open the Door to Haitians

While Trump and Vance lie about Haitians eating pets and Biden responds by ending the program that allows Haitians to stay in the country, actual Haitians are suffering horribly.

Almost 48 percent of people in Haiti are experiencing acute food shortages amid ongoing armed gang violence, a new report says.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said in the report released on Monday that 5.41 million people in the beleaguered Caribbean nation were facing “high levels of acute food insecurity” between August 2024 and February 2025.

Of the overall total, 6,000 people are “experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger”, the world-hunger watchdog warned.

“Haiti continues to face a worsening humanitarian crisis, with alarming rates of armed gang violence disrupting daily life, forcing more people to flee their homes and levels of acute food insecurity to rise,” the report reads.

Haiti was already reeling from years of unrest when powerful armed groups – often with ties to the country’s political and business leaders – launched attacks on prisons and other state institutions across the capital, Port-au-Prince, in February.

Well, what’s that gotta do with me, Americans ask. See, the thing about this is that the U.S. and France isolated Haiti for so long after their revolution that they doomed it to poverty and violence, exacerbated by long periods of American intervention in the 20th century. Brown University has a functional little summary of the history:

Over the past two hundred years, the United States has played a important role in the economic and political activity of Haiti, its close neighbor to the south. The United States’ refusal to recognize Haiti as a country for sixty years, trade policies, military occupations, and role in Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s removal from Haiti are little known by Americans, but significant for the development, or rather, lack of development in Haiti. Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and has economic and health statistics comparable to those in Sub-Saharan Africa. A major factor in analyzing the state of Haiti today is its relationship with the United States both now and throughout history.

…

Some argue that beyond economic motives, Americans did not acknowledge the Haitian Revolution because they simply could not understand it. The concept of slaves overthrowing their French masters and ruling themselves in a nation was not only threatening, it was unthinkable, “ a revolution by Blacks definitely was something that could not be” (Reinhardt 250).

While the United States refused to diplomatically recognize Haiti, it continued trade relations with the new nation. Prior to the revolution, the United States was a large trade partner with Haiti, second only to its colonial power, France. Throughout the 19^th century, the United States continued to import Haitian agricultural products and export its own goods to Haiti, with unfavorable trade policies for Haitians. In fact, by the mid-19^th century the United States exported more goods to Haiti than to any other country in Latin America (Farmer 51). During the 19^th century, its first century as a nation, Haiti was heavily burdened and its development stuck; it was forced to repay France in order to receive diplomatic recognition, and was diplomatically isolated from all other major powers (see Plummer 1992).

….

In 1915, the United States Marine Corps invaded Haiti, and remained in the country for almost twenty years. Nominally there to keep peace within the country (there had been six presidents and untold violence during the prior five years), the military played an important role in re-shaping the country’s government and in forming their national army. That national army is infamous today for its undemocratic coups and violations of human rights.

The military occupation also provided an opportunity for the United States to strengthen its economic ties with the country. Since the late 19^th century and early 20^th century, the United States attempted to revitalize mercantilism in the Caribbean, with a large focus on Haiti (Plummer 12). This trade had devastating effects on Haiti, as Haiti models how “foreign trade… can foster socioeconomic decline” (Plummer 40).

This is all before we even get to Duvalier, the coups around Aristide, etc. If you want to argue that France has the lion share’s of responsibility for the hell that is Haiti, go ahead, I won’t mind. But the U.S. has a ton of responsibility too.

I fully recognize that I am screaming into the wind on immigration. But you have to make the moral argument for opening the borders to a lot of nations who the U.S. has treated so badly historically that the only possible form of reparations in the short term is to allow their people into ours. Haiti is right there with Guatemala, Mexico, and Nicaragua as the nations with the most long-term negative impact from American intervention. Haitians are dying. The very least we can do is to allow them to live.

But then that would make some Ohio whites with Polish and German last names uncomfortable. We can’t have that now. Nope, not those good Americans.