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Haitian migrants face mass deportation from America after dramatic update

Haitian migrants face mass deportation from America after dramatic update

Daily Mail​17 hours ago

Haitian migrants risk deportation from America after the Trump Administration terminated their temporary legal protections.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security that it is terminating legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, setting them up for potential deportation.
DHS said that conditions in Haiti have improved and Haitians no longer meet the conditions for the temporary legal protections.
'This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,' a DHS spokesperson said.
'The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.'
The Department of State, however, has not changed its travel advisory and still recommends Americans 'do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and limited health care.'
'The decision today will leave returning Haitian citizens at very high risk of persecution, danger, homelessness. People have nowhere to go,' Pastor Dieufort Fleurissaint, of Boston, told The Boston Globe.
'You have a humanitarian collapse... The only hope we have is God. God and to call upon our friends and allies, elected officials, to advocate on our behalf, so these families can be protected and find a way to enact permanent solutions.'
He told the outlet that migrants have been calling him left and right since the news dropped as they are now unsure what their and their children's futures look like and their employment.
Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley condemned DHS, writing on Bluesky: 'We should NOT be deporting anyone to a nation still dealing with a grave humanitarian crisis like Haiti.'
Heather Yountz, senior immigration staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, said the Trump Administration was revoking Haitian's protect 'simply to fulfill the harmful mass deportation he promised,' she told The Boston Globe.
Haitian migrants who are in the US under a temporary protection status (TPS) will have to leave by September 2. The program ends on August 3, but it doesn't go into effect for a month.
DHS advised TPS holders to return to Haiti using a mobile application called CBP Home.
The majority of Haitian migrants live in Massachusetts and Florida.
Gang violence has displaced 1.3million people across Haiti as the local government and international community struggle to contain an spiraling crisis, according to a recent report from the International Organization for Migration.
The report warned of a 24 percent increase in displaced people since December, with gunmen having chased 11 percent of Haiti's nearly 12million inhabitants from their home.
'Deporting people back to these conditions is a death sentence for many, stripping them of their fundamental right to safety and dignity' Tessa Pettit, a Haitian-American who is executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, told AP.
Frantz Desir, 36, has been in the US since 2022 on asylum, but he says he is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to terminate their protections.
'You see your friends who used to go to work every day, and suddenly - without being sick or fired - they just can't go anymore. It hits you. Even if it hasn't happened to you yet, you start to worry: "What if it's me next?"' he told AP.
Desir says his asylum court date was set for this year, but the judge rescheduled it for 2028.
Desir lives in Springfield, Ohio, with his wife and two children, and he works in a car parts manufacturing plant.
The US has also banned all flights to Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital, until September.

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‘We won't let them get away with this': activists to sue Tanzania's government over ‘sexual torture'
‘We won't let them get away with this': activists to sue Tanzania's government over ‘sexual torture'

The Guardian

time2 hours ago

  • The Guardian

‘We won't let them get away with this': activists to sue Tanzania's government over ‘sexual torture'

Two east African activists say they plan to sue Tanzania's government for illegal detention and torture during a visit in support of an opposition politician in May. Boniface Mwangi, from Kenya, and Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan, sent shock waves around the region earlier this month when they gave an emotional press conference in which they alleged they had been sexually assaulted and, in Atuhaire's case, smeared in excrement after their detention in Dar es Salaam. '[The authorities] take you through sexual torture,' Mwangi said at the time. Even in a region accustomed to recurrent rights abuses, the apparent targeting of foreigners by the Tanzanian authorities marked a new and worrying turn in a crackdown on critics and opponents of the president, Samia Suluhu Hassan. In interviews with the Guardian, Mwangi and Atuhaire said they planned to initiate cases in a Tanzanian court as well as through regional and international avenues, including the east African court of justice and the African court on human and peoples' rights. 'We're not going to let them get away with this,' said Mwangi, a well-known Kenyan photojournalist and activist. Atuhaire, a lawyer, journalist and critic of the government of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, said: 'We need to hold these guys accountable to know that they cannot violate people unprovoked like that.' Mwangi and Atuhaire, who had travelled to Tanzania to attend a court hearing for a treason case against the opposition politician Tundu Lissu on 19 May, say they were taken from their hotel by people they described as security officials, illegally detained and verbally and physically abused. Mwangi said his beating started at an immigration office that afternoon when a security official slapped and punched him repeatedly in the presence of Atuhaire and three lawyers. He said he was assaulted again at a police station, where security personnel accused the activists of having travelled to Tanzania to disrupt peace and ruin the country. 'The real torture,' Mwangi said, happened that evening when a group of about seven men – whom he described as having bloodshot eyes and smelling of alcohol – and a woman handcuffed and blindfolded him and Atuhaire and drove them to a compound. Both activists said that at the compound they were ordered to strip and were suspended upside down then hit with wooden planks on their soles. They said their attackers stifled their screams by stuffing Mwangi's underwear into his mouth and putting some cloth in Atuhaire's mouth. The activists said their attackers inserted what seemed to be their hands or other objects into their rectums and smeared excrement on Atuhaire's body, then photographed them and told them not to reveal what had happened. Two days later they were dumped at their countries' borders. 'I didn't see us coming out of there alive,' said Atuhaire. 'It was really, really painful.' Mwangi said: 'Nothing in my mind or in my life prepared me for this. I've been injured before, I've been beaten before, I've been shot before. My house has been bombed. I've seen all kind of extremities and cruelties, but I've never felt such kind of pain.' The Guardian has approached a Tanzanian police spokesperson for comment. Last week Tanzania's representative to the UN, Abdallah Possi, told a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: 'Although these claims against the government are highly doubtful, we take the allegations of torture, sexual abuse and malpractices very seriously. That is why the government is currently investigating and, if established, those concerned will be held accountable.' A series of killings, kidnappings, arrests and tortures over the past year have prompted widespread condemnation locally and internationally. Among those killed was Mohamed Ali Kibao, a member of the secretariat of the main opposition party Chadema, who was found beaten and with his face doused with acid in September. In April, Father Charles Kitima, a Catholic priest who is vocal on democratic reforms and rights issues, was brutally attacked near his residence. Earlier this month, the government deregistered a church belonging to Josephat Gwajima, a politician from the ruling party, after he called out illegal detentions and enforced disappearances and announced a prayer campaign to seek divine intervention for Hassan and other national leaders. And last week two men who posted talkshows about democracy and governance on YouTube were arrested for 'improper use of social media'. There is no evidence of Hassan's personal involvement in the incidents, many of which the government has condemned. Nevertheless, opposition politicians and rights campaigners say her administration is overseeing a return to the fear-based tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli. Earlier this month she warned activists from neighbouring countries against 'trying to destabilise' Tanzania. Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a Tanzanian rights activist, described the targeting of non-Tanzanians as unprecedented and a 'sign of huge panic' on the part of the Hassan administration in the run-up to her first presidential electoral test. 'What we're seeing is a very insecure presidential candidate,' said Tsehai, who lives in self-exile in Nairobi. 'She has to lean more heavily on that security apparatus. And she has decided that she doesn't want to have any free or fair election. She just wants to get her second term. And that decision comes at a very heavy price.' Last year, Tsehai was abducted from the streets of the Kenyan capital by armed men and feared she would become the latest victim of a spate of enforced deportations from Kenya. However, she was released a short time later without crossing the border after news of her kidnapping spread quickly on social media. In the months after Hassan took office following Magufuli's death in 2021, the president gained domestic and international approval for reconciling with the opposition and reversing some of Magufuli's repressive policies. But since then a wave of repression has wiped out hopes of lasting reform. Hassan's CCM party has ruled the country since independence. The opposition and civil society have long called for reform of the constitution, which critics say grants the president and the ruling party excessive powers. Earlier this year, Lissu was arrested and charged with treason and cybercrime offences, and his Chadema party – which had called for a boycott of this year's elections unless electoral reforms were enacted – was disqualified from participating. Mwangi said CCM was acting for self-preservation. 'What Suluhu is trying to do is win an election by any means necessary,' he said. 'She's reading from a dictator's manual [that says] 'brutalise and beat people into submission'.' The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods. Secure Messaging in the Guardian app The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said. If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select 'Secure Messaging'. SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post See our guide at for alternative methods and the pros and cons of each. Atuhaire – whose work in exposing corruption won her an international women of courage award from the US last year – said her and Mwangi's experience showed the 'level of impunity' in Tanzania. The activists are still nursing injuries on their feet and other parts of their bodies, in addition to having psychological trauma. They said they had decided to speak about their alleged abuse to shine a light on the plight of Tanzanians who had gone through similar experiences. 'There's no level of shame or stigma that is more important than pursuing justice,' Atuhaire said. 'Justice is the driving factor – these people must be held accountable for what they did to us, for what they have done to Tanzanians.'

Haitian migrants face mass deportation as the US ends legal protections
Haitian migrants face mass deportation as the US ends legal protections

Daily Mail​

time2 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Haitian migrants face mass deportation as the US ends legal protections

Haitian migrants risk deportation from America after the Trump Administration terminated their temporary legal protections. On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security that it is terminating legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, setting them up for potential deportation. DHS said that conditions in Haiti have improved and Haitians no longer meet the conditions for the temporary legal protections. 'This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,' a DHS spokesperson said. 'The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.' The Department of State, however, has not changed its travel advisory and still recommends Americans 'do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime , civil unrest, and limited health care.' 'The decision today will leave returning Haitian citizens at very high risk of persecution, danger, homelessness. People have nowhere to go,' Pastor Dieufort Fleurissaint, of Boston, told The Boston Globe . 'You have a humanitarian collapse... The only hope we have is God. God and to call upon our friends and allies, elected officials, to advocate on our behalf, so these families can be protected and find a way to enact permanent solutions.' He told the outlet that migrants have been calling him left and right since the news dropped as they are now unsure what their and their children's futures look like and their employment. Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley condemned DHS, writing on Bluesky: 'We should NOT be deporting anyone to a nation still dealing with a grave humanitarian crisis like Haiti.' Heather Yountz, senior immigration staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, said the Trump Administration was revoking Haitian's protect 'simply to fulfill the harmful mass deportation he promised,' she told The Boston Globe. Haitian migrants who are in the US under a temporary protection status (TPS) will have to leave by September 2. The program ends on August 3, but it doesn't go into effect for a month. DHS advised TPS holders to return to Haiti using a mobile application called CBP Home. The majority of Haitian migrants live in Massachusetts and Florida. Gang violence has displaced 1.3million people across Haiti as the local government and international community struggle to contain an spiraling crisis, according to a recent report from the International Organization for Migration. The report warned of a 24 percent increase in displaced people since December, with gunmen having chased 11 percent of Haiti's nearly 12million inhabitants from their home. 'Deporting people back to these conditions is a death sentence for many, stripping them of their fundamental right to safety and dignity' Tessa Pettit, a Haitian-American who is executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, told AP. Frantz Desir, 36, has been in the US since 2022 on asylum, but he says he is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to terminate their protections. 'You see your friends who used to go to work every day, and suddenly - without being sick or fired - they just can't go anymore. It hits you. Even if it hasn't happened to you yet, you start to worry: "What if it's me next?"' he told AP. Desir says his asylum court date was set for this year, but the judge rescheduled it for 2028. Desir lives in Springfield, Ohio, with his wife and two children, and he works in a car parts manufacturing plant. The US has also banned all flights to Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital, until September.

Wes Streeting says chants about IDF at Glastonbury festival ‘appalling'
Wes Streeting says chants about IDF at Glastonbury festival ‘appalling'

The Guardian

time3 hours ago

  • The Guardian

Wes Streeting says chants about IDF at Glastonbury festival ‘appalling'

Chants of death to the Israeli military at Glastonbury were 'appalling' and the BBC and the festival have questions to answer, Wes Streeting said, while adding that Israel needs to 'get its own house in order'. The health secretary said the chanting should not have been broadcast to those watching at home, highlighting that Israelis at a similar music festival were kidnapped, murdered and raped. 'I thought it's appalling, to be honest, and I think the BBC and Glastonbury have got questions to answer about how we saw such a spectacle on our screens,' he told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News. 'But I also think it's a pretty shameless publicity stunt, which I don't really want to give too much indulgence to for that reason.' But he also had strong words for Israel, which has condemned the chanting. Streeting said what people should be talking about in the context of Israel and Gaza is the humanitarian catastrophe and the fact that Israeli settlers attacked a Christian village this week. 'All life is sacred. And I find it pretty revolting we've got to a state in this conflict where you're supposed to sort of cheer on one side or the other like it's a football team,' he said. Asked about the Israel embassy's response to the chants at Glastonbury, he said: 'Well, I'd say sort of two things in response to those words from the Israeli embassy. Firstly, I do think that if I take the equivalent of the war in Ukraine, I'm unequivocal about which side of that war I'm on. I want Ukraine to win. Would I be celebrating or chanting for the death of Russian soldiers? No, I want to see an end to the war, and I want to see an end to the conflict. 'I'd also say to the Israeli embassy, get your own house in order in terms of the conduct of your own citizens and the settlers in the West Bank. So, you know, I think there's a serious point there by the Israeli embassy I take seriously. I wish they'd take the violence of their own citizens towards Palestinians more seriously.' Police are examining videos of comments made by the acts Bob Vylan and Kneecap at Glastonbury as the festival enters its third day. On Saturday the rapper Bobby Vylan, of the rap punk duo Bob Vylan, led crowds at the festival's West Holts stage in chants of 'Free, free Palestine' and 'Death, death to the IDF' [Israeli Defence Force], before a member of the Irish rap trio Kneecap suggested fans 'start a riot' outside his bandmate's upcoming court appearance during their set on the same stage later in the afternoon. Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, known as Mo Chara, was charged with a terror offence for holding a Hezbollah flag at a London gig last November. Ó hAnnaidh told the crowd on Saturday: 'Glastonbury I'm a free man! If anybody falls down, you've got to pick them up. We've got to keep each other safe.' He thanked the Eavis family, the festival's organisers, for 'holding strong' and allowing their performance to go ahead. Avon and Somerset police said: 'We are aware of the comments made by acts on the West Holts stage at Glastonbury festival this afternoon. Video evidence will be assessed by officers to determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion In response, the Israeli embassy said it was 'deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage at the Glastonbury festival'. A statement on X said: 'Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy. But when speech crosses into incitement, hatred, and advocacy of ethnic cleansing, it must be called out – especially when amplified by public figures on prominent platforms. 'Chants such as 'Death to the IDF,' and 'From the river to the sea' are slogans that advocate for the dismantling of the state of Israel and implicitly call for the elimination of Jewish self-determination. When such messages are delivered before tens of thousands of festivalgoers and met with applause, it raises serious concerns about the normalisation of extremist language and the glorification of violence. 'We call on Glastonbury festival organisers, artists, and public leaders in the UK to denounce this rhetoric and reject of all forms of hatred.' Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, called the scenes 'grotesque', and said: 'Glorifying violence against Jews isn't edgy. The west is playing with fire if we allow this sort of behaviour to go unchecked.' Asked about the controversy ahead of Kneecap's performance on Wednesday, Emily Eavis said: 'There have been a lot of really heated topics this year, but we remain a platform for many, many artists from all over the world and, you know, everyone is welcome here.'

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