A Senior U.S. Diplomat to Haiti Resigns, Protesting Biden Administration Policy

Politics|A elder U.S. diplomat to Haiti resigns, citing the Biden administration’s ‘inhumane’ deportation policy.

• Sept. 23, 2021, 9:44 a.m. ET

A elder American diplomat who oversees Haiti argumentation has resigned, 2 U.S. officials said, submitting a missive to the State Department that excoriated the Biden administration’s “inhumane, counterproductive decision” to nonstop Haitian migrants backmost to a state that has been wracked this summertime by a deadly earthquake and the governmental turmoil successful the aftermath of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The diplomat, Daniel Foote, was appointed peculiar envoy to Haiti successful July, conscionable weeks aft Mr. Moïse was changeable successful his chamber during a nighttime raid connected his residence. Mr. Foote, a erstwhile ambassador to Zambia and acting adjunct caput for planetary narcotics and instrumentality enforcement affairs, did not respond to messages for remark connected Thursday morning.

In his stinging resignation letter, Mr. Foote criticized the Biden medication for deporting immoderate of the thousands of the Haitian migrants who had traveled to the Texas borderline from Mexico and Central America successful caller days.

“I volition not beryllium associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive determination to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and amerciable immigrants to Haiti, a state wherever American officials are confined to unafraid compounds due to the fact that of the information posed by equipped gangs successful power of regular life,” Mr. Foote wrote successful the letter, which was first reported by PBS NewsHour. Its authenticity was confirmed by a elder State Department authoritative and a legislature official.

Mr. Foote besides blasted a “cycle of planetary governmental interventions successful Haiti” that “has consistently produced catastrophic results,” and helium warned that the fig of migrants to American borders “will lone turn arsenic we adhd to Haiti’s unacceptable misery.”

In May, the Biden medication extended impermanent protected presumption for 150,000 Haitians already surviving successful the United States. But tens of thousands much Haitians person attempted to transverse into the United States since past contempt not qualifying for the program.

Mr. Foote was said to person pushed for greater oversight and responsibilities successful his occupation arsenic envoy to Haiti, efforts that were rejected by elder State Department officials.

In his resignation letter, Mr. Foote confirmed that “my recommendations person been ignored and dismissed.”

“Our argumentation attack to Haiti remains profoundly flawed,” helium wrote.

The emergence successful Haitian migration began successful the months aft President Biden took bureau and rapidly began reversing erstwhile President Donald J. Trump’s strictest migration policies, which was interpreted by galore arsenic a motion that the United States would beryllium much welcoming to migrants.