By Dr Luisa Farah Schwartzman, PhD, University of Toronto — The Conversation, 8 June 2022
Much of the racism toward Haitians comes from abroad. In the late 1700s Haitian revolutionaries expelled French colonizers and abolished slavery. But France and other countries demanded reparations for their lost “property” — meaning human beings. Haiti had to pay this debt throughout the 20th century. From 1915 to 1934 the United States military occupied Haiti with lasting social and political consequences; in 1937 Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the slaughter of thousands of Haitians living near the border; and from the 1950s through the 1980s The US supported the Duvalier dictatorship.
Facing economic and political instability, many Haitians go abroad to improve life for themselves and their relatives back home. Starting in 1981 The US adopted a policy of interdicting and processing Haitian migrants at sea, effectively establishing a loophole that allowed it to circumvent the principle of non-refoulement and send Haitians back home. Wealthy countries today increasingly put immigration on “remote control,” controlling immigration from a distance in international waters and third countries’ territories. In Brazil, where a “special relationship” with Haiti through the MINUSTAH peacekeeping operation initially led to acceptance of Haitian migrants, officials later created a humanitarian visa with temporary legal status but without the same protections from deportation as asylum. As the Brazilian economy worsened, many Haitians went north through Colombia’s dangerous Darien Gap and Mexico before trying to reach the US or Canada. The 1951 UN refugee convention was designed to protect people fleeing conditions created by Nazi Germany’s genocidal racism, but the refugee system fails to prevent the pervasive and often deadly forms of racism that Haitians face. This racism is transnational, and its source is the countries of destination. This article has been republished under Creative Commons licence.