JD Vance Spreads Debunked Claims About Haitian Immigrants

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Calling Haitians a danger to public safety is part of a long history of treating Haitian people as savages – and dismissing their home country as a vector of disease and dysfunction. Far from making idle, inflammatory comments about migration, Trump and Vance tapped into long-standing fears of Haitian migrants.

Racism is part of the story, to be sure. But there’s also something unique about anti-Haitian animus that has been with us for two centuries.

The first occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934

Haitian independence in 1804 sent shockwaves through the west. As historian Millery Polyné notes, “Haiti represented a nation with no visible signposts of progress and development.” Both France and a newly formed United States had been fighting for independence just decades earlier. Yet many in the United States and elsewhere dismissed Haiti’s movement for independence as illegitimate. For deigning to be free, the newly formed republic was diplomatically ignored, and largely maligned as a failed state. Haiti, in fact, was forced to pay reparations to France for 122 years. To be clear, the circumstances that Haiti finds itself in today are not totally self-made. The actions of France and the United States stunted the development of this beacon of Black liberation that Haiti had become.

The rebukes of Haiti came fast and furious. Many of Haiti’s early struggles were common for a new nation, but near-constant meddling from the United States undermined Haitian independence. The most extensive damage, perhaps, came from the U.S. occupation from 1915 to 1934. In the midst of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson became preoccupied with blocking German influence in the region. Over the next 20 years, the United States disrupted the Haitian economy, shipped Haitian finances to the United States – controlling her economy to secure American interests – banned the practice of vodou, which was integral to the Haitian Revolution, and created a physical infrastructure that did not serve the Haitian people.

U.S. rule favored American interests

Most damning, in 1917 the United States rewrote the Haitian constitution and dropped the Haitian citizenship requirement as a condition for land ownership. This provision opened the country to foreigners who sought to exploit the riches of the island and its people, while ensuring Haiti remained beholden to outside interests.

The Wilson administration also dissolved the Haitian legislature, which was not reassembled until 1929. The only local institution the U.S. government placed any resources into growing was the national police force. Adding insult to injury, the U.S. government exported Jim Crow segregation to the island and reintroduced slavery, referred to as “forced labor.” This occupation killed thousands of Haitian people and had wide-ranging consequences that are still evident a century later.

James Weldon Johnson, noted writer and civil rights activist, spent time in Haiti during the occupation and wrote for The Nation about his observations of the workings on the island. He wrote of apologists for the occupation that “much stress will be laid upon the ‘anarchy’ which existed in Haiti upon the backwardness of Hatians and their absolute unfitness to govern themselves.” Johnson goes on to discuss the many disruptions caused by the U.S. intervention, and how American cruelty eroded any claims of American benevolence. Johnson and many others were skeptical of U.S. accomplishments during this period. Research by others reveals the wide extent of the resulting damage, as America’s presence on the island set in motion a raft of coups and civil wars, along with general unrest.

America’s Haiti

Treating Haitian people as “lesser” became a western pastime, with American occupation of the island a semi-regular occurrence throughout the twentieth century. U.S. officials typically justified the interference in Haiti under the guise of providing stability. America, however, gained far more than the Haitian republic from these engagements. The U.S. has seen benefits in the form of industry and forging diplomatic relationships with dictators, while leaving chaos in the wake of these occupations.

The racism underlying U.S. interventions into Haiti have been a part of our popular culture for a long time. Voodoo and other allegations of Haitian primitivity are not new in American media. From the cutlass-wielding gangsters of Miami Vice and the Bad Boys franchise to the zombie-makers of horror movies, the island represents modernity’s fears. These stock images of Haitians may not be a copy of nineteenth century notions but they certainly look very similar. This thinking came roaring back in 2010 after a devastating earthquake rocked the island. Noted televangelist Pat Robertson said the earthquake was a result of a pact enslaved Haitians – read “non-Christians” – made with the devil to be free of France. As evidence of this “deal with the devil,” Robertson notes the success of the neighboring Dominican Republic to demonstrate the Haitian “original sin.”

One way to read this is literally – that Haiti is being punished for making this alleged pact. Another interpretation is that Haitians are still being punished by the United States and others for taking their freedom. This latter interpretation seems borne out by the historical record. Unfortunately, these images and opinions are not limited to pontificating televangelists. This kind of thinking informs policy.

Moral panic and Haitian migrants

The exclusion of Haitian migrants has been routine American practice since Congress forbade the immigration of Black people in 1803. While Haitians were not listed by name, the law coincided with the liberation of this island. America did not want her own enslaved population to be influenced by notions of freedom.

Unfortunately, the exclusion of Haitians did not stop there. During the 1970s, when the United States was looking for a “democratic” country in the Caribbean to further their interests in the region, the Carter administration cozied up to the regime of “Papa Doc” Duvalier. Ignoring the Duvalier regime’s reputation for graft and cruelty, the United States made it a policy to refuse Haitian migrants entry into the country.

The United States sought to stem the tide of Haitian refugees driven to the United States by the dysfunction of the Duvalier regime – but the U.S. government did not want to lose the region to communism. Consequently, the U.S. allowed Cuban migrants to enter the country in order to undermine the Castro regime. Yet Haitians seeking safety in the U.S. were routinely intercepted at sea. Some were returned to Haiti, while others were jailed at Guantanamo Bay, or in U.S. prisons and detention facilities.

These were migrants seeking refuge, legally entitled to the protections of international law. Yet the United States was unmoved. So dedicated was the U.S. to the exclusion of Haitian migrants, they devised a separate classification to comply with international law while refusing their refugee claims.

Economics – or racism?

“Economic refugees” was the term of art America used to distinguish Haitian migrants from Cuban migrants when the blatant hypocrisy on this question was called out. Economic migrants were people seeking meaningful work and, therefore, according to the U.S. government, were not “legitimate refugees.” Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) was one of the most ardent critics of Democratic and Republican administrations alike for their double standard on Haitian refugee claims. As leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, Chisholm argued the practice of detaining, interdicting, and invalidating Haitian refugee claims was racism by another name. The only difference between Haitians and Cubans, surmised Chisholm, was that Haiti was a majority-Black country and that America’s geopolitical interests superseded its humanitarian responsibilities.

While attempts to equalize the treatment of Haitian migrants would wax and wane over multiple administrations, the Haitian presence in the United States remains troubled. Haitian people had the unenviable position of being part of the infamous “4-H Club.” Along with homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and heroin users, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed being Haitian or a recent visitor to the island as a risk factor for contracting AIDS. Though Haitians were no more likely than Dominicans to be carriers of HIV, their entry to the United States was barred.

Under the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, HIV-positive Haitians seeking asylum were either returned to their home country or jailed at Guantanamo Bay. This had the effect of labeling Haitian people as different and dangerous – and a public health risk as well as a cultural threat. Some of this rhetoric resurfaced during the covid-19 pandemic, when the U.S. applied Title 42 guidelines to severely restrict U.S. borders. This decades-old public health provision, revived by the Trump administration and kept in place by the Biden administration, saw the deportation of over 20,000 Haitians between 2021 and 2022.

TPS is just that – temporary

These deportations coincided with the extension of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians because of the natural disasters, public health concerns, and political unrest on the island. The Biden administration expanded TPS to include approximately 500,000 Haitian people this summer. This means Haitians who qualify for TPS can live and work legally in the United States. Still, TPS is just that – temporary. The program can be undone by succeeding administrations.

The legacy of all this is the real harm inflicted on Haitian people. Those seeking safety in the United States have had to confront a calloused immigration system dead-set on ignoring their claims for refugee status. And while the Biden administration extended TPS to Haitians already residing in the United States, there’s no plan for Haitians who are stranded at the Mexican border, in detention, or who have already been deported. Regardless of who is in office, TPS is a stop-gap measure that makes precarity a defining feature of noncitizen Haitian lives in America.

This long history of casting Haitian people as perpetual foreigners who are an existential and literal threat to Americans is not new. The rhetoric Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance employ are well-worn dog whistles. And while it would be easy to label this episode as a partisan fight in the 2024 election, anti-Haitianism has long been fair game across Republican and Democratic administrations.

Unfortunately, the only losers here are the Haitian people, along with other migrants, who find themselves fodder for political contests while having to negotiate uncertainty because the United States still does not have a coherent policy to address the needs of Haitian noncitizens and other migrants who find themselves in similar circumstances.

The fallout from these lies was so detrimental that the Haitian Bridge Alliance has brought criminal charges against Trump and Vance in Clark County for various crimes, including aggravated menacing and harassment. Regardless of the outcomes of criminal complaints or attempts to correct the record, much damage has already been done.