US Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote resigned Thursday afternoon and strongly condemned the Biden administration for what he described as an “inhumane” and “counter-productive” decision to deport thousands of Haitian migrants.
Foote, who has only been in office for two months, on Wednesday (22/9) sent a letter of resignation to Foreign Minister Antony Blinken. He said the American approach to Haiti “remains very flawed.”
Foote said the advice he gave was “so far ignored and ignored” by the government, “while there is no other advice than what I have given.”
Since Sunday (19/9) America has flown back hundreds of Haitian migrants to their homeland after flocking to the US-Mexico border in Del Rio, Texas, in hopes of entering and living in America. Many of these migrants never lived in Haiti again after the devastating earthquake of 2010 and over the past ten years have lived in Chile, Brazil and other countries in South America.
America has allowed thousands of Haitian migrants to come to America to seek asylum, but has sent some of the migrants back to their homeland. In one day there are seven flights to the capital city of Port-au-Prince or Haiti’s second largest city, Cap-Haitien.
State Department spokesman Ned Price dismissed Foote’s objections, saying some of his views were “fully considered in a rigorous and transparent policy process. Some of these proposals have been found to undermine our commitment to promoting democracy in Haiti and have been rejected during the policy-making process. To say that his proposal was completely ignored is wrong.”
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the same thing.
The US State Department said “unfortunately, instead of participating in a solution-oriented policy process, Special Envoy Foote resigned and misrepresented the circumstances of his resignation. During his tenure he failed to take advantage of the opportunity to raise concerns about migration, and instead chose to resign.” [em/ka]
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