These deportations are obviously a threat
to Haiti and a threat to the entire region.
Two hundred — nearly 200 organizations,
professionals in healthcare, people who work
with immigrant communities, have called for
the administration to stop these deportations
and find alternatives to detention that are
contingent with COVID-19 regulations.
But these deportations have continued.
And since in April, when the first set began,
we’ve had three people test positive for
COVID-19 after they’ve arrived in Haiti.
It’s a disgrace.
It’s dangerous, really, for the health of
the communities that these folks are being
returned to.
And so, we are, as a community, as people
whose loved ones are affected or will continue
to be affected by this, are calling for the
deportations to stop.
Edwidge Danticat, you also talk about Haiti’s
history with what you’ve called “past
collisions with microbes.”
Talk about what happened after the earthquake
a decade ago.
Well, after the earthquake, when it seemed
like this was the worst thing that could possibly
happen, when 300,000 people had been killed
and close to 2 million people were homeless,
you had the United Nations come and basically
poison one of the central rivers in Haiti,
causing a cholera epidemic that killed 10,000
people and infected close to a million people.
Now, the U.N. has never quite taken the proper
responsibility.
Recently, some of their own monitors have
come out and said that they have not done
enough in terms of compensating families or
creating health structures.
So, the U.N. and the cholera epidemic has
left Haiti even more vulnerable in terms of
being able to deal with this current pandemic.
Certainly, there’s a medical group that’s
advising the president, that’s come out
and said that Haiti is just not ready.
And the deportations are adding fuel to the
fire.
We don’t have these ventilators.
We don’t have the beds.
And the more exposure that we’re getting
from this exportation of the virus, the more
dangerous it is for a country that has suffered
already so much through other exposures that
could have been avoided.
And so, people go to a wedding someplace,
and the virus spreads.
And these are called super-spreader events.
These deportations are international super-spreader
events and are putting a great deal of lives
at risk and are offering them up to a medical
system that in the — you know, the richest
countries have suffered.
Imagine what it would be like in a place,
like, that’s been so battered and so mistreated,
like we have been.
Haitian people are strong, but this is just
— this is a lot.
Well, I want to thank you so much for joining
us, Edwidge Danticat, Haitian American novelist.
