In recent months, desperate Haitians have crowded at immigration centers in Port-au-Prince to obtain a passport. Tens of thousands have headed towards the United States, risking life and health to cross the Darien jungle between South and Central America or crowding onto rickety boats to cross the ocean. Many have taken similar journeys towards other Caribbean shores. And a growing number are moving across the island of Hispaniola to the Dominican Republic, where they face documented abuses and the near-constant risk of deportation.
This new wave of emigration adds to the long list of people who have left the country since a massive earthquake in 2010 and in the wake of violent riots that culminated in a political crisis in 2018. Challenges such as poverty, natural disasters, political crisis, and insecurity have historically driven Haitian migration, and have continued to do so in the aftermath of the July 7, 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, which led to a power vacuum. Even before Moïse’s killing, about half the population lived in poverty. Dominican President Luis Abinader last year said Haiti was in the midst of a “low-intensity civil war,” underscoring the unprecedented nature of the country’s implosion.
Current migrants are distinct from the so-called boat people who sought humanitarian protection in the United States in recent decades, nor are they necessarily solely seeking better living conditions. They include Haitians with dual citizenship who had once chosen to raise their families in Haiti but now feel they have no choice but to leave. There are also those from the middle and upper classes who have lost hope of leading a normal life in their native land; their collective departure represents not only the movement of individuals but also a brain drain that could further erode the country’s prospects and a symbol of declining optimism for the future.
The United States is the most popular destination for Haitian migrants, although many are also going to Brazil, Canada, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, as well as other countries in the Caribbean, Europe, and Latin America. In recent years, many Haitians who moved to countries such as Brazil and Chile have migrated elsewhere for a second or third time as economic opportunities for Haitian migrants dried up. Because of the inherent challenges of leaving, only the most privileged have been able to afford to depart by plane, with most using land routes and a smaller number sea crossings.
From October 2020 through May 2023, U.S. authorities encountered Haitians at the U.S. southwest border nearly 146,000 times (see Figure 1). From October 2022 through mid-June 2023, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicted more than 4,600 Haitian migrants at sea. As of mid-February, more than 5,000 Haitians arrived through a new humanitarian parole program that allows people in the United States to sponsor arrivals coming by plane, which has prompted the exceptional demand for Haitian passports (the program is also available to Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans); more than 580,000 Haitian cases were pending as of May. Newcomers join a population of 697,000 Haitian immigrants in the United States as of 2021. As of this January, 107,000 Haitians held Temporary Protected Status (TPS), granting them U.S. work authorization and protection from deportation through August 2024, and 105,000 more were estimated to be eligible to apply.
“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole. That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” Trump said during his 90-minute speech at a campaign rally on the grounds of the Dayton International Airport.