PORT AU PRINCE: The US special envoy to Haiti resigned on Thursday two months after his appointment, denouncing the Biden administration’s deportation of Haitian migrants from the US-Mexico border back to their poverty-stricken homeland.

“I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti,” State Department envoy Daniel Foote said in a scathing letter of resignation.

In the letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Foote described Haiti as a place where US diplomats “are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life.”

“Mired in poverty, hostage to the terror,” Foote wrote, the Haitian population “simply cannot support the forced infusion of thousands of returned migrants lacking food, shelter, and money without additional, avoidable human tragedy.” “More refugees will fuel further desperation and crime,” he wrote.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2021