Palm Beach County Haitian leaders call for action to stem violence, stabilize country

A pair of Palm Beach County elected officials are calling for more action to stem escalating violence and instability in Haiti, where some U.S. embassy staff members were airlifted out of the country Sunday amid ongoing chaos.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-West Palm Beach, has said Haiti's unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry, should establish a transition process that leads to elections.

"We need a transition government right now," said Cherfilus-McCormick, who is Haitian-American, told CBS Miami. "We have to secure the island for the people. They deserve to live in peace. They deserve to live in dignity."

Palm Beach County Commissioner Mack Bernard, also Haitian-American, said security should be the top focus, calling it the country's "most urgent and pressing" need.

Political instability in the years after the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise and an explosion of gang violence has made life hellish in the nation and led to international calls for action.

Haiti's travails — it is among the poorest nations in the world — are of particular concern in South Florida, where thousands of Haitians and Haitian-Americans live. The nation's capital of Port-au-Prince is about 700 miles southeast of Miami and about 750 miles from West Palm Beach.

Haiti's history: How did the turmoil escalate?

Black slaves in Haiti rebelled from France and established an independent nation in 1804, history that remains a source of pride for many Black Americans in general and Haitian-Americans in particular. But that independence came at a huge cost in terms of lives and in financial terms, as France extracted some $32 billion from the nation in payments that lasted into the mid-20th century and siphoned off a significant portion of the nation's gross-domestic product.

Haiti's economic problems have been exacerbated by political turmoil and natural disasters, including a 7.0 earthquake in 2010 that the Haitian government reported killed an estimated 220,000 to 316,000 people.

Thousands of Haitians left for the United States and were allowed to stay through a grant of temporary protected status by the U.S. government.

About 1.1 million people of Haitian descent live in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Florida, with a Haitian-American population of about 544,000, has the largest population of Haitian-Americans in the country. And most Haitian-Americans in Florida live in South Florida.

The temporary protected status has been repeatedly extended for displaced Haitians in the U.S.

The Trump administration announced in 2017 that it was ending it and that Haitians in the U.S. needed to prepare to return to their home. A federal judge blocked enforcement of that status change, an injunction that remained in place until the Biden administration reaffirmed TPS for Haitians in the U.S.

The Biden administration's most recent extension of TPS for Haitians, issued in December, allows them to stay in the U.S. until Aug. 3, though the ongoing catastrophic violence and political unrest will likely lead to calls for another extension.

Gangs have taken control of Haiti after a political assassination

Haiti's most recent problems date to Moises' assassination in 2021. No elected leader has governed the nation since, and, in February, Moise's widow Martine Moise — who was shot multiple times in the attack that killed her husband — was charged with complicity in the assassination. Martine Moise, who was flown to Florida for treatment after the attack, has denied involvement.

Armed gangs have essentially taken over significant swaths of the country in the years after the assassination.

Gangs control about 80% of Port-au-Prince, according to United Nations estimates. This month, armed gang members tried to take over the nation's international airport.

RELATED: Port of Palm Beach to once again ship cars to Haiti; why is the business so lucrative?

On Sunday, U.S. military personnel airlifted some Americans out of the country's embassy.

“At the request of the Department of State, the U.S. military conducted an operation to augment the security of the U.S. Embassy at Port-au-Prince, allow our Embassy mission operations to continue, and enable non-essential personnel to depart,” U.S. Southern Command said in a statement to USA TODAY.

The U.S. State Department has asked Henry to begin a process that would lead to elections. Gang members have called for his resignation.

For the past week, Henry has been stuck in Puerto Rico, where his plane was diverted after armed gangs laid seige to Haiti's international airport. Henry had been traveling to Kenya in a bid to secure from that country participation in a U.N.-backed police force.

Deployment of that force has been tied up by legal battles, and gangs used Henry's absence — Haitians did not know for an extended period of time where he was — to escalate violence dramatically and expand their foothold in the country.

Mack Bernard has many ideas on how to bring peace to his native country

Bernard, who was born in Haiti and still has relatives there, said he wants to see action on a variety of fronts, starting with security.

The U.S., he said, should work with the international community to establish that Kenyan-staffed U.N. police force. It should fight harder and more efficiently against the international drug trafficking that is fueling the gangs, and the federal government should work with Florida to stem the flow of weapons and ammunition from the Sunshine State to Haiti.

Bernard also joined calls for some sort of transition process that can lead to elections.

Calls for U.S. involvement in the affairs of other nations, even ones as close geographically as Haiti, are sometimes met by complaints that the problems of those nations are not the concern of the U.S.

Bernard, however, said the problems beseiging Haiti are not and will not stay there.

"If you're not assisting them, these problems come to the United States," he said.

Wayne Washington is a journalist covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and race relations at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County's Haitian leaders call for action to stabilize Haiti