U.S. special envoy to Haiti resigns over repatriation of Haitians from U.S.-Mexico border
Harshly criticizing what he called the United States’ “inhumane” treatment of Haitian migrants and its policy toward Haiti, Daniel Foote, the U.S. diplomat whose reputation for working in some of the world’s most challenging environments led the Biden administration to name him special envoy to Haiti, has resigned.
In a strongly worded resignation letter dated Wednesday, the veteran diplomat criticized the U.S. decision to repatriate thousands of Haitians from the U.S.-Mexico border over the past few days.
“I will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the dangers posed by armed gangs in control of daily life,” Foote said.
He also lashed out at what he called “puppeteering” of Haitian politics by the U.S. and other nations.
“Last week, the U.S. and other embassies in Port-au-Prince issued another public statement of support by for the unelected, de facto Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry as interim leader of Haiti, and have continued to tout his political agreement over another broader, earlier accord shepherded by civil society,” Foote said.
“The hubris that makes us believe we should pick the winner — again — is impressive. This cycle of international political interventions in Haiti has consistently produced catastrophic results,” he added. “More negative impacts to Haiti will have calamitous consequences not only in Haiti, but in the U.S. and our neighbors in the hemisphere.”
The State Department challenged Foote’s letter Thursday and his reasons for leaving. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told McClatchy’s Washington Bureau and the Miami Herald that Foote wanted the U.S. to send military troops to Haiti, where armed gangs and a rise in kidnappings have made life unbearable and impeded the ability of aid groups to properly respond to the recent earthquake. After an explicit request from Haitian authorities, the Biden administration sent a delegation to review the request and decided the U.S. would not send troops.
“You know, one of the ideas that Mr. Foote had was to send the U.S. military back to Haiti,” Sherman said. “I have followed Haiti since the Clinton administration, and I can tell you that sending the U.S. military into Haiti is not the answer that will solve the terrible situation that the Haitian people are currently facing. It just was a bad idea.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price called Foote’s resignation unfortunate.
“This is a challenging moment that requires leadership. It is unfortunate that, instead of participating in a solutions-oriented policy process, Special Envoy Foote has both resigned and mischaracterized the circumstances of his resignation,” Price said. “He failed to take advantage of ample opportunity to raise concerns about migration during his tenure and chose to resign instead.”
And White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Foote did not raise the concerns that are laid out in his resignation letter before submitting it. “I would note that Special Envoy Foote had ample opportunity to raise concerns about migration during his tenure,” Psaki said. “He never once did so.”
Foote did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Foote, a veteran diplomat who had been deputy assistant secretary of state and was the former U.S. ambassador to Zambia, was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July after the assassination of the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse. His resignation comes as Haiti finds itself wrestling with multiple crises — a proliferation of armed gangs, political volatility, low COVID-19 vaccination numbers and a humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of a deadly August earthquake.
There is also the Biden administration’s ongoing return of Haitian migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border and its implications for a country struggling to recover from the earthquake along its southern peninsula amid widening insecurity, spiking hunger and social and political tensions.
Since Sunday, 12 repatriation flights have left the United States and 1,401 Haitian nationals have been returned to Haiti. Another 3,206 Haitian nationals have been moved from a camp in Del Rio, Texas, to U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody or to other sectors of the border to either be expelled or placed into removal proceedings. There are now fewer than 5,000 migrants in the Del Rio sector, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said.
The deportations from the camp, which held as many as 15,000 migrants at its peak, have sparked criticism of the Biden administration’s U.S. policy in Haiti. The outrage grew after publication of photos and video on news sites and social media of border patrol agents on horseback wielding what appeared to be ropes or reins while chasing some of the Haitian migrants.
Shocked by the image, Vice President Kamala Harris described what she saw as “horrible” and acknowledged that more needs to be done to help stabilize Haiti and to understand it.
“Talk about a country that has just experienced so much tragedy that has been about natural disasters, the head of state assassinated, and we really have to do a lot more to recognize that as a member of the Western Hemisphere, we’ve got to support some very basic needs that the people of Haiti have,” said Harris, who is in charge of border issues for the administration.
Most of the migrants arriving in Del Rio were previously living in Brazil, Chile and other countries in South and Central America. Many left Haiti after the devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, after which the U.S. pledged to help Haiti “Build Back Better.”
Since then, the conditions in the country have only worsened, something Foote recognized, telling a panel at Florida International University earlier this month that his condition for accepting the special envoy job was “the space to pursue Haitian-led solutions” rather than those “made in the beltway by a bunch of Americans” and to support Haitians in addressing their country’s crisis.
“I left Haiti in 2012 and came back in July and it’s one hundred times worse,” said Foote, who first worked in Haiti in 2010. “Obviously, our reconstruction plans, although they were based on the best of intentions, did not work well.
“And since I look back at the history books, I think one of the big reasons is we tried to solve the problem without Haitian leadership, and so this time we and the U.S. government is admitting ‘We know how not to fix Haiti,’ “ Foote said. “Let’s lean on Haitian-led solutions to come to a political agreement, to move forward on elections with a new government.”
Foote described his job as one of largely listening and looking for the best ways that the U.S. could support Haitian solutions.
But he and the White House were giving different messages on Haiti. For example, on the same day of the FIU panel, Foote spoke of a transition government in Haiti and that “elections cannot take place in the near term” because of insecurity and political discord.
Meanwhile, White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a call with journalists continued to push the narrative of elections. Foote also touted an agreement signed by Haitian civil society groups to lead a transitional government for Haiti, which the administration has been silent on.
“The dialogue has been positive and has progressed in Haiti over the past six weeks, and I’m cautiously optimistic that there will be some sort of consensus in the not-too-distant future,” Foote said during the panel sponsored by FIU’s Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy.
Later, echoing Haitian criticism of the U.S. policy, Foote said: “The biggest mistake we made in the past was impose our solutions on Haitians.”
Foote faced an almost insurmountable challenge in Haiti. Prior to his shocking July 7 assassination, Moïse had been ruling by decree and was one of only 11 elected officials in the entire country of 11.5 million. After the president of the Supreme Court died of COVID-19 just weeks before Moïse’s murder and with both the court and parliament dysfunctional, the political vacuum provoked a power struggle that continues today involving different political factions vying for power.
The most recent involved Moïse’s loyalists trying to link the current prime minister to the assassination, and the head of what’s left of the Senate, Joseph Lambert, attempting to have himself installed as provisional president. Meanwhile, the Commission for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis has an Aug. 30 agreement, now signed by hundreds of individuals representing various civil society groups, pushing to take charge of the country.
Foote, who came out publicly in support of the agreement after it was signed, said his biggest challenge in Haiti was “the immediacy of the problem.”
“There is no quick solution. There is a right solution that will take some time,” he said, adding that he was working to mount an anti-gang task force within the Haiti National Police. “It is critical that the people can move around freely and comfortably, particularly in Port-au-Prince and now the countryside, in the south, so that relief can flow better and so that, once Haitian authorities decide on an election time, so that elections can be held and they can be acceptable to the Haitian people.”
Armed gangs’ ability to control areas of Haiti like the main road leading down to the quake-ravaged south, Foote said, meant that “the security situation remains a big challenge for reconstruction, for political agreement and to move forward for elections.”
Foote’s role has not been without challenges, including strained relations with the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison has been the target of criticism from members of Haitian society.
Immediately after taking the Haiti job Foote began talking to leaders across the political spectrum as well as members of civil society, encouraging their push to reach an agreement over a transition government.
Those discussions led the Biden administration to back away from its previous position of having Haiti elections soon, and to acknowledge that the conditions in the country are not yet conducive for Haitians to vote.
This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 8:28 AM.
