Special to UM News

The report documents how Haitians deported back to their homeland face  broken homes and broken hearts.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (February 19, 2015)—In a report documenting the failure of the U.S. to safeguard the human rights of those it deports to post-earthquake Haiti because of their criminal records, the School of Law’s Human Rights and Immigration Clinics urge the U.S. government to halt the deportations until conditions in Haiti improve. The report, a collaboration with the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago School of Law, makes other recommendations, including the extension of Temporary Protected Status to all Haitian nationals.

For the report, “Aftershocks: The Human Impact of Post-Earthquake Deportations to Haiti,” the law  clinics joined forces with Alternative Chance/Chans Alternativ, Americans for Immigrant Justice, Haitian Women of Miami (FANM), and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti to conduct extensive fact-finding, including interviews with more than 100 deportees, about their treatment.

“We hope this report moves the U.S. government to stop deportations to Haiti,” said Marleine Bastien, executive director of FANM. “Post-earthquake Haiti is unable to safely receive deportees.” She spoke at a news conference at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on Thursday with other advocates and Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat, who wrote the award-winning novel Brother, I’m Dying, and the foreword to the report.

“In post-earthquake Haiti, deportees from the U.S. face tent cities, deadly cholera, broken homes, and broken hearts,” added Michelle Karshan, founder of Alternative Chance. “Barriers such as lack of language and family support, and insufficient medical or mental health care and medicine, leaves deportees lost and at risk of death.”

The report also documents the severe financial and psychological strain imposed on the spouses and children of deportees left in the U.S. “The government has taken away my father, my best friend,” said one teenage girl whose father was deported after the earthquake.

Following the catastrophic 2010 temblor that killed more than 200,000 people and leveled much of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. granted Temporary Protected Status to eligible Haitians, allowing them to remain in the U.S. for the time being. But individuals who had  two misdemeanors or one felony on their records were excluded from TPS protection, leading to the forcible repatriation of approximately 1,500 men and women. The deportees included parents of U.S. citizen children and people with severe medical and mental health conditions, as well as those with minor criminal records.

“This report would not have been possible without deportees willing to share their stories of the almost insurmountable obstacles they face in post-earthquake Haiti,” said Geoffrey Louden, a third-year law student at UM School of Law, who traveled to Haiti in October and worked on the report. “We urge policymakers to listen.”