Latest news with #Haitian-American
International Business Times
22-07-2025
- Politics
- International Business Times
Who is Pierre Réginald Boulos? Former Presidential Candidate Arrested by ICE for Supporting Violent Groups and Concealing Vital Details
Federal agents in Miami have arrested Pierre Réginald Boulos, a prominent Haitian businessman, doctor, and former presidential candidate. His detention has been verified by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as of last Thursday. He was arrested at his home in South Florida. This is one of the most high-profile arrests made by ICE so far. Boulos was arrested for violating the Immigration and Nationality Act, according to ICE. He is accused of promoting activities that fuel gang violence, leading to Haiti's general instability. Officials believe his conduct will work against U.S. foreign policy. Despite being born in the U.S., Boulos renounced his American citizenship to run for president in Haiti. He later obtained lawful permanent residency in 2023 under the Biden administration. But ICE now alleges that he hid his political allegiances and old legal entanglements while applying for residency. Last year, Boulos founded the Third Way Movement political party, which directly challenged the previous president, Jovenel Moïse. ICE says Boulos didn't tell them he had been referred for prosecution in Haiti for allegedly misappropriating loans—an allegation he has disputed. He is currently detained at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami. Human rights activists have criticized this center for overcrowding and poor conditions. Boulos was once president of Haiti's National Chamber of Commerce and founder of several companies. He remained active in Haitian politics until the assassination of President Moïse in 2021. Gang violence has soared in Haiti since then. His arrest comes as tensions between the United States and Haiti have intensified over American immigration policies that have targeted people from the country. Advocacy groups fear increased deportations. "I have said this from day one: You have to put the emphasis on criminals, not on people who are trying to seek refuge, trying to look for a better way to live or escape political persecution," said Rod Joseph, a Haitian-American candidate for Congress. Boulos had yet to make a public statement, and his legal team didn't reply to a request for comment from the media. To this day, he is the highest-profile Haitian figure arrested by ICE.
Winnipeg Free Press
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Federal agents in Miami arrest a prominent Haitian businessman and once presidential hopeful
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Federal agents in Miami have arrested Pierre Réginald Boulos, a well-known Haitian businessman, doctor and former presidential hopeful. The arrest occurred at Boulos' home in South Florida late last week, a person familiar with the arrest said Monday. Boulos was born in the United States but renounced his citizenship to run for president of Haiti in recent years. He obtained his U.S residency last year under the Biden administration. Boulos, who previously has denied a flurry of corruption allegations, is the most well-known Haitian arrested to date by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It wasn't immediately clear why Boulos was arrested. ICE did not return a message seeking details. An attorney for Boulos could not be immediately reached for comment. Boulos was being held at Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, a detention center that Human Rights Watch said in a recent report is one of three in Florida that are grossly over capacity and 'flagrantly violate international human rights standards.' Boulos founded several businesses while in Haiti, where he served as president of the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In 2019, he created the Third Way Movement, a political party in contrast to the 'shameless elite and the unscrupulous politicians who are working to bog down the country and increase the suffering of the people,' he said at the time, according to local media. The party promptly stated it would seek 'a historic political compromise that would facilitate the negotiated departure from power of Jovenel Moïse.' Boulos visited Haiti's central region in August 2019 as he rallied for support. 'I am part of the system that must be destroyed,' he was quoted as saying by Le Nouvelliste newspaper. 'I know how to destroy it.' Moïse served as president from 2017 until he was gunned down at his private residence in July 2021. Dozens of suspects were arrested, including seventeen former Colombian soldiers who are still being interrogated by Haitian authorities. Court documents have stated that those involved in the plot included Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a pastor, doctor and failed businessman who envisioned himself as Haiti's new leader. Elections have not been held since Moïse was killed. Gang violence surged in the political vacuum that ensued, and Boulos soon returned to the U.S. The arrest comes as the Trump administration seeks to end legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians after announcing it would revoke such protections for those who arrived in the U.S. under a humanitarian parole program. Rod Joseph, a Haitian-American running for U.S. Congress, said he has been working with the administration to avoid deporting people 'just for the fun of it.' 'If the president goes after criminals, no one is against that,' he said over the phone on Monday. 'But if you deport someone who doesn't commit any crime who's here seeking a better life, this is when we start having issues with the practice.'
New Straits Times
17-07-2025
- Politics
- New Straits Times
Panic grips Haitian migrants in US as Trump pushes deportations
NEW YORK: The 500,000-strong Haitian community in the US is in a state of panic as the Trump administration pushes to deport those who fled there after a devastating 2010 earthquake. "I came here seeking refuge, and now they want to kick me out," said Clarens, who obtained Temporary Protected Status (TPS) following the quake that levelled much of his Caribbean island home. "I believed in the American dream, and I thought I could bring the rest of my family here. I thought we would be able to thrive in the US." In Miami and New York, where the Haitian diaspora is largest, fear of being returned to the destitute, violent, largely lawless and gang-ridden island is widespread. "It's total panic, the whole community is suffering because even if your temporary status has not yet been revoked, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents are on the streets and can arrest anyone," said Clarens, which is not his real name. After cancelling an extension of the protective status granted to 520,000 of Clarens's countrymen to Feb 2026, Trump definitively cancelled it in June. While a New York court has blocked Trump's move, Haitian-American immigration lawyer Stephanie Delia warned the reprieve will likely be short-lived. "If it ends Feb 3 – which sadly we expect that it will – you're talking about people who for 15 years have relied on something and have built their life on it," she said. In Brooklyn's "Little Haiti" neighbourhood, many in the diaspora are too afraid to go to church, work, or even the doctor for fear of being arrested by ICE agents. "The number of TPS people – so mostly Haitians and people from Latin America – has dropped sharply at the clinic. From 300 to 30 a day. People are afraid," said the head of a clinic in the neighbourhood who requested anonymity. Guerline Jozef, director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said she was aware of many people afraid to go outdoors, including one woman in "complete distress." "She had to flee Haiti 20 years ago, and was able to get that protection in 2010. Now her fear is what is going to happen – primarily with her children," Jozef said. Haitian activist Pascale Solages warned that without legal status, "people will no longer be able to work, pay their rent, and will end up on the street." Faced with the choice of being arrested and removed, or "self-deporting," some migrants are fleeing to Canada. "We are receiving many inquiries and calls. We are seeing 10 to 15 people per day," said Marjorie VilleFranche, director of Maison d'Haiti, a support organisation in Montreal, home to a large Haitian community. Under an agreement on safe third countries, Haitians in the US can apply for asylum in Canada if they have family there. Others can cross the land border and request asylum within two weeks. Canada's Border Services Agency said more than 8,000 asylum seekers crossed at the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle crossing between Quebec and New York State in the first six months – up from 4,613 in the same period in 2024. Most of those were Haitian. Clarens said he could not imagine travelling to Canada without his family and waiting years for an asylum ruling. The prospect of returning home is even more daunting. Haiti is plagued by gang violence, with more than 3,000 people killed in the first six months of 2025, the UN says. The gangs control most of the capital city, Port-au-Prince. Haiti is run by a weak, unelected transitional government and has not held an election of any kind since 2016. "Gangs control everything – they have informants monitoring those who enter and leave the country. In their minds, if you live in the US, you must have money," Clarens said. "We'd be kidnap targets. Sending us back there is like sending us to our deaths – to the slaughterhouse."
The Star
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Iconic hotel in Haiti burned down by gangs
Haiti's once-illustrious Grand Hotel Oloffson, a beloved Gothic gingerbread home that inspired books, hosted parties until dawn and attracted visitors from Mick Jagger to Haitian presidents, was burned down by gangs recently. Hundreds of Haitians and foreigners mourned the news as it spread across social media, with the hotel manager confirming the fire on social media platform X. Even though gang violence had forced the hotel in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, to close in recent years, many had hoped it would reopen. 'It birthed so much culture and expression,' said Riva Precil, a Haitian-American singer who lived in the hotel from age five to 15. In a tearful phone interview, Precil recalled how she learned to swim, dance and sing at the Oloffson. Longtime hotel manager Richard Morse, who had been overseeing the property remotely from the United States since the hotel's closure in 2022, told The Associated Press that for several months, there were persistent rumours that the hotel had burned. 'So when I heard that it burned, I did what I usually do, which is call someone who has drones and have them go take a look,' he said. 'This time, when they called back, they said something like, 'take a seat'. I knew then that this wasn't like the other times.' The attack on the community where the hotel was located began on July 5, according to James Jean-Louis, who lives in the hills above the Oloffson. He said in a phone interview on July 6 that he observed the flames as he and other residents were chased out while police and gangs exchanged heavy gunfire. Journalists are currently unable to visit the site and verify the damage at the hotel because gangs control the area, which remains inaccessible. Patrick Durandis, director of the Institute for Safeguarding National Heritage, also confirmed the fire in a message to the AP. Among those lamenting the fire was Michael Deibert, author of Notes From The Last Testament: The Struggle For Haiti , and Haiti Will Not Perish: A Recent History . He landed in Miami, Florida on July 6 only to check his phone and see a flurry of messages from friends in Haiti. 'When you went to the Oloffson, you really felt you were being connected with Haiti's political and cultural history,' he said. 'You went to Haiti and were never the same. And the Oloffson really captured that.' The hotel attracted artists, intellectuals and politicians from Haiti and beyond, including the late US authors Jacqueline Onassis and Tennessee Williams. It also survived coups, dictatorships and the devastating 2010 earthquake. The Grand Hotel Oloffson was once Haiti's most beloved hotel. A whole lifetime Isabelle Morse, daughter of Richard Morse, said he loved having writers, photographers and other artists at the Oloffson. 'His sense of community was very important to him,' she said in a phone interview, describing the hotel as 'his whole life'. 'For him, it represented freedom, where people from all walks of life could come in and share that space,' she said. The elder Morse said he was reluctant to talk about what happened to the hotel given that in Haiti '... so many people are dying and being raped and losing everything that I don't want the focus to be on the hotel.' Morse spent nearly 30 years at the Oloffson. It's where he met his wife, had his children and started his band, RAM. 'There's no life without hope, so we have to consider bringing Haiti back and bringing the hotel back and bringing the art and the culture back,' he said. Isabelle said her parents had hoped to reopen the Oloffson. 'It's not only a business, it's our home. We were raised there,' she said. 'It was more about moving back home rather than reopening the business.' The Oloffson served as a presidential summer palace in the early 1900s and then became a US Marine Corps Hospital before a Swedish sea captain converted it into a hotel in the 1930s. It also served as inspiration for the fictional Hotel Trianon in Graham Greene's 1966 novel, The Comedians, set in Haiti under the brutal dictatorship of Francois Duvalier, best known as 'Papa Doc'. In real life, tourism dwindled under the Duvaliers, and the hotel became a respite for aid workers and foreign correspondents. Tourism boost In the late 1980s, Richard became the hotel's manager. RAM played Haitian roots music there on Thursday nights that became legendary, as were the Day Of The Dead celebrations known as Fet Gede that drew in Vodou practitioners. 'It was a vessel for so many people to gather and freely express themselves,' Precil recalled. 'RAM created that culture and that environment, made it a space that welcomed people from all types of denominations and sexual preferences.' The Oloffson was nestled in the upscale community of Pacot in the southeast corner of the country's capital. It was surrounded by lush gardens and often described as a mythical place, renowned for its intricate latticework, turrets and spires and creaking parquet floors that characterise Haiti's endangered gingerbread homes. A 1940s advertisement by Haiti's tourism department said that the hotel was situated 'in the coolest section of the town' and noted that English, French, German and Spanish were spoken there. The hotel closed in recent years as gangs began raiding and seizing control of once peaceful communities. 'A lot of Haiti's architectural heritage is going up in flames right now with so-called leaders standing by with their hands in their pockets,' Deibert said. 'The destruction of the Oloffson is symbolic of the destruction of Haiti's history and culture that we've been watching over the last several years.' – AP
Miami Herald
12-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Homeowners in Little Haiti are aging. Here's what the next generation is facing
People who grew up in Little Haiti in its heyday have a lot of the same memories: women carrying baskets on their heads with products to sell, Rara bands filling the Friday night air with music, the smell of Haitian cuisine seeping from the windows. The culture was everywhere. But the once-vibrant community that welcomed wave after wave of Haitian immigrants has changed so much in the past decade that the remaining homeowners in the community that are of Haitian descent wonder if their dwindling numbers can keep the culture alive. Institutions like the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Chef Creole and Libreri Mapou still serve as cultural anchors for the neighborhood, which was officially named 'Little Haiti' in 2016, but for Haitians who own homes in the area, it feels like 'a ghost town.' Ashley Toussaint, whose father had lived in Little Haiti since 1988, said the neighborhood has become a shell of itself as he's seen the area overrun by gentrification. Slowly but surely, the many Haitian faces Toussaint used to see began to vanish. He points to the forced eviction of residents at the former Sabal Palm housing project that began in the 1990s as a turning point. Once filled with Haitian immigrants, it was later transformed into Design Place. 'It changed from being a Haitian community to a white and Latino community,' he said of the complex. 'That was parallel to what was happening in Wynwood. I felt like that was the realization that Little Haiti was no longer…new people were coming to the neighborhood en masse.' Toussiant is one of a shrinking number of homeowners living in Little Haiti. According to the Miami-Dade County property appraiser's office, out of the 7,269 dwelling units in the area — including single-family homes, condos, duplex, apartments and public housing — there are only 736 homesteaded properties, making the owner-occupancy rate to about 10 percent. Most of those owner-occupied dwellings are among the 1,017 single-family homes in Little Haiti, of which 478 have a homestead exemption. When the Little Haiti Revitalization Trust, in conjunction with FIU, revealed a draft of the trust's strategic plan, it was found that since 2019, 37 percent of properties purchased in the area were owned by outside investors. The plan also noted that Little Haiti is home to 21,759 residents, of whom 37 percent — about 8,152 — are Haitian-American. And between 2010 and 2023, the neighborhood lost five percent of its population of Haitian descent. RELATED: Little Haiti is changing. Could a strategic plan help preserve its roots? Little Haiti Revitalization Trust CEO Joann Milord said the trust recognizes it's an uphill battle with trying to retain and attract residents. Still, she emphasized the importance of the community to maintain the neighborhood's character. 'It's important to recognize that there is a significant number of Haitians that still live in Little Haiti, and that we need to find a way to not only preserve them, but help them to climb to a higher economic class, either through education, job training and improving the conditions in which they live as well, so that they want to maintain the neighborhood,' she said. Aging homeowners and family assets For Little Haiti homeowners like Toussaint, keeping the property in the family has presented its own set of challenges. Nearly 25 percent of Little Haiti's homeowners are 65 years and older, according to the strategic plan, making the properties both a valuable family asset and a financial burden. Toussaint's father Elisson purchased his home in 1988 and Toussaint became a co-owner of the property in 2017, when the city had it condemned. At that time, the home was declared an unsafe structure and was set for demolition, Toussaint said. He filed a quitclaim deed to add him as an owner of the property, paid the necessary fees to rectify the situation and has maintained it ever since. He's lived in the home since 2019. 'I didn't really inherit so much, I kind of saved it,' he said. Now he's also inherited the job of fending off the deluge of potential buyers of the property. He said he's been offered $250,000 for the home, which he says is worth an estimated $700,000. Like Toussaint, Cassel Paul said he's had to fend off predatory buyers calling to purchase his parents' home, often offering far less than what it's worth. 'I had to finally tell them to stop calling every day, five, six times a week,' he said. ''We want to buy your house'. Listen, my folks own this house. They live here. If they sell you this house, where are they going to live?' The Pauls moved to what is now Little Haiti in 1971, when Paul said the neighborhood was predominantly white and very unwelcoming to Haitians. 'To make that adjustment … all of a sudden you have people not liking you, disliking you just because of who you are. That was a shock. It was a shock to the system,' he said. Paul's 93-year-old father Gaspard lost a house to foreclosure before settling in the current home, which is where he raised his kids. Cassel Paul is determined to protect this family asset, but the fate of the home once his parents are gone has yet to be decided, whether he and siblings sell or keep it. 'This is their home, so we're here. We leave it at that,' he said. Paul pointed to the low wages as part of the reason residents are leaving for more affordable areas, and taking with them the culture that cultivated Little Haiti. According to the trust's strategic plan, 50 percent of Little Haiti's homeowners and 63 percent of renters are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. 'The bulk of the culture is lost,' Cassel Paul said. 'I listen to folks talk about bringing jobs and more affordable housing to Little Haiti, but affordable housing for who? When you bring in $13 hour jobs, but you're charging thousands of dollars in rent, it doesn't jive.' Getting in on the changes in the area Another challenge homeowners face is the influx of short term and vacation rentals in the area. Airbnb, the short-term vacation rental company, says only one percent of all available housing in Miami-Dade County is listed on their site, but company did not provide data down to the neighborhood level. There are about 415 listings in Little Haiti as of July 11, according to Airbtics, a website which tracks Airbnb listings and analytics. Still, Airbnbs can be profitable for homeowners: The typical host earned an estimated $15,000 in 2024, according to Airbnb. For families like Erica Desinord's that may be the solution to keeping their family's home. When Desinord's grandfather purchased his home in 1988, Little Haiti was still a vibrant neighborhood where she recalled going outside to play. Now, with her grandfather's recent passing, Desinord said the family will turn the property into a short-term rental property. It's a way to honor him, a man ever determined to keep his home. 'Because he always said he worked hard for this, he didn't have an education, all he did was work,' Desinord said. 'This is his home, so we didn't want to sell it and get money.' Desinord said her grandfather had been approached several times about selling his home, but he would always give an emphatic, 'no.' 'So we want to keep that 'no' going.' As new development encroaches upon Little Haiti, the Little Haiti Revitalization Trust, which is set to vote on its drafted strategic plan as early as September, is making efforts to increase homeownership among longtime residents. Their homebuyer and rehab program, which officially launched in June, provides down payment assistance to residents renting in Little Haiti looking to purchase a home or to those desiring to buy a home in Little Haiti. They haven't received one application yet. 'We have to be cognizant of the fact that development is happening in Little Haiti and that it's a force of nature that we cannot stop,' she said. 'However, we have to try to see how it is developed and can be inclusive, and see which role the community that's currently there can be involved in that.' Still, as much as they try to hold onto their family legacies, Desinord, the Pauls and Toussaint, acknowledge that change is inevitable. They simply want a say in those changes. 'Let's be part of the action. Some people want to be enemies of change and then not benefit at all,' Toussaint said. 'I do feel like we still have the power to represent our culture.'
