TORN APART

PORTLAND:

Two Portland women are gearing up for a fight to reunite with their Haitian husbands, who were deported earlier this year to Haiti – a country plagued by violence, instability, and poverty. The men were returned without papers, tools, or means of survival, leaving their wives in anguish and disbelief.

The emotional toll is heavy for 43-year-old Julian West, whose 23-year-old husband, St Louis Harold, now struggles to survive in Port-au-Prince.

For months, her nights have been filled with worry, becoming more and more sleepless after each phone call from him outlining horrific tales.

“I am facing it rough because every time he is calling, telling me that he is hungry, and that he doesn’t have anything to eat. It hurts me because I know that hunger is not a nice thing,” bemoaned West, trying but failing to hold back her tears last Wednesday. She gave in, and they flowed freely down her chin.

“The other day I went to Western Union to send him money, and because he doesn’t have his papers,” she said, referring to identification documents and other credentials many of the migrants brought to Jamaica to prove who they were and assist with any processing.

“I tried to send the money to his father. The lady at the Western Union told me that I can’t send it because I don’t know the father,” sobbed West, adding that her best efforts to explain the situation regarding her husband to the clerk were met with indifference.

“Me and him buy some chickens. Since that time, I sell out the chicken dem and wanted to send him some of the money, roughly $40,000, but there is no way to get it to him. He doesn’t have his papers or tools so he can’t work either,” bemoaned West, her facial expression a mix of anger, frustration and loneliness.

Without his tools, her hardworking husband is doubly disadvantaged, she said.

St Louis Harold and another Haitian man, Jamesly Tercius, had arrived in Jamaica more than a year ago. Despite the language barrier, they integrated into the Portland community, doing odd jobs and construction work, until a dispute between two Haitians in Windsor Forest ended in one being killed and another charged with murder in February. That tragedy triggered a wider crackdown on Haitian migrants across the parish.

West, a Portlander, met Harold while passing a construction site on which he worked en route to her farm. For her, their relationship was a healing experience after years of abuse from Jamaican men.

“Let me tell you, I get used by nuff man. Nuff man! and I am a good person. He (Harold) was very helpful to me.

“When I went to work and come home, all of my clothes dem wash, me house clean. Me sick with my stomach, my mother is elderly, and I don’t have any help. If I am not there in the days, he would cook and give to my mother and make sure she is alright,” West told The Sunday Gleaner.

An anchor in her life

Wilson, who married Jamesly Tercius, shared a similar story. A single mother of two, she said her Haitian husband quickly became an anchor in her life.

“He did any handiwork available – painting, cutting grass, everything! He was hard working. Most times when I am down at the shop and I come back home, by the time I come here, everything has been done – place clean up, clothes wash, him cook – and I am talking about all of this being done in one day,” she noted, spinning one of the shirts her husband left behind over her shoulder.

“He was very kind and very caring,” she said, noting that he ensured that her children had money for school whenever she needed his assistance.

In response to the glaring age difference, West retorted: “Age is just a number. ‘Cause from the person is helping you and he is taking care of you, nothing is not wrong.”

Both men, despite the language barrier, adapted quickly to Jamaican life. They began picking up Jamaican Patois and communicated with their wives through translation apps on their phones.

The couples legally married last year and were living as husband and wife when the crackdown began. Their lives were upended after the Windsor Forest incident, which saw local police rounding up dozens of Haitians for deportation. Both men were arrested and charged with illegal entry. Wilson was also jailed briefly for allegedly harbouring an undocumented immigrant.

The men were initially ordered by the court to stay at a shelter while their legal status was assessed. But just days later, they were deported – along with nearly 50 other Haitian nationals – without warning or the chance to gather belongings or say goodbye to their wives.

In an April press conference, National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang deemed deportation a necessary move to reduce the “local problems” caused by illegal migrants.

“We have sent back about 50 [Haitians] by the Coast Guard, but once they are in court, that’s the problem,” Chang told reporters. “They are the source of the problems because they bring guns, it is heavily organised, and the organisers push guns, they take back drugs, and the gun-for-drugs trade is big business. It is not just ganja but also cocaine.

“These guns are sold locally and serve as a basis for some of the killings we are having and disputes among them lead to killings among them,” said the minister.

“They attract scammers”

“They attract scammers who come to buy guns, and if scammers pay for guns and they don’t get them, someone gets killed,” he added. “The police will take action to remove a number of them from the community.”

He added that JamaicaEye surveillance would be expanded in Portland to help identify undocumented individuals.

Months later, and Chang’s utterances still pain their hearts, the two wives told The Sunday Gleaner, noting that their husbands were in the island long before the incident that triggered the crackdown. They had been good, hard-working members of society, who were denied a chance at a stable life, free of violence and suffering in their home country.

Attorney-at-law Marcus Goffe, who represented some of the Haitians prior to their deportation, said he, too, was blindsided by the move. He said it flies in the face of the United Nations Refugee Convention, of which Jamaica is a signatory, and also the Jamaica’s Refugee Policy of 2009.

“Based on the discussions we were having, in particular with the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA), on how these cases can be managed in a respectful way, it was agreed that once they (Haitians) pleaded guilty, they would be placed at a camp in St Mary, where they would remain until their status was determined. That was the court order that was made,” said Goffe, noting that he expected a thorough process, involving detailed interviews of the men to determine this.

“Only to hear, within about a week, without any notice whatsoever to prepare themselves, their wives or their lawyers – no notice at all – that they were being shipped off one evening. That is the whole trauma of it. One, you have denied them due process, and there is no way the Government can say they didn’t know they were married to Jamaicans,” he said, noting that the court provided the couples’ marriage certificates along with other documents when he was asked to represent the men.

Applied for

refugee status

He described as callous and cold the denial of the men to say goodbye to their families and gather their stuff before being shipped home. He noted that the two Haitians were the only two that were married, but explained that all had applied for refugee status yet were denied due process.

Goffe said he will be filing a constitutional claim on behalf of the deported Haitians, especially the two with Jamaican wives.

Jamaican citizenship is not automatically granted upon marriage to a Jamaican citizen; however, it can be a basis for applying for Jamaican citizenship. It is not an automatic process. Foreign spouses need to apply for citizenship by registration, which involves fulfilling specific requirements and submitting necessary documentation.

Goffe said that for decades, Portland has had a history of Haitian families along its shorelines, yet Jamaica has failed to acknowledge this, and instead has been treating all Haitians who turn up on the island as criminals.

“This is our problem with the Government of Jamaica around these issues because they have this obligation under the UN Convention, they have put in a refugee policy, passed by the Government of Jamaica and they are not abiding by it,” charged Goffe. “This is something that should have been on the CARICOM meeting’s agenda. We had the meeting last week that the prime minister hosted, and I’ve not heard anything substantial about CARICOM’s obligations to Haiti. So I’m also calling on our CARICOM leaders, stop being so silent. Be proactive. They must put in place policies and programmes to protect Haitians’ constitutional and human rights.”

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com