Haitian migrants: new resignation of a senior American official
Harold Koh, US State Department Legal Counsel, June 28, 2011 in Washington.
Getty Images via AFP - CHIP SOMODEVILLA
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
The controversy surrounding the mass expulsions of Haitian migrants from the United States to their native country continues.
As evidenced by the departure of Harold Koh, legal adviser to the State Department.
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After the resounding resignation of special envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote, another senior American official decided to resign.
Harold Koh, a progressive lawyer and former dean of Yale University, sent a six-page memo to his supervisors explaining his decision.
In this note, of which the
Politico
newspaper
obtained a copy, Harold Koh does not mince his words.
Extreme poverty, violence of armed gangs, heightened political instability after the assassination of the president, earthquake, tropical storm: "
Haiti is a humanitarian nightmare
".
By sending
Haitian migrants
home, the Biden administration violates international law, said this senior State Department official.
Harold Koh criticizes in particular Title 42 which authorizes the immediate return of asylum seekers and migrants to the borders under the pretext of Covid-19 and the health issues of the pandemic.
An “
illegal
” and “
inhuman
” device, insists this jurist considered to be one of the most brilliant of his generation.
“
This unfortunate policy cannot be set in stone,
” says Harold Koh.
He demands that the Biden administration assess the situation of each Haitian migrant, verify whether these migrants have family in other countries, but above all that deportations to Haiti be immediately suspended.
According to the latest figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 57 flights from the United States landed in Haiti between September 19 and October 1, sending 6,213 migrants home.
On September 22, special envoy to Haiti
Daniel Foote
announced his resignation in a letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
He denounced the "
inhuman and counterproductive decision of the United States to expel thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants in Haiti
".
► To read also: Migrants turned back on horseback in Texas: apologies from American officials visiting Haiti
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Haiti
United States
Immigration