9th Summit of the Americas: What benefits for Haiti?

The 9th Summit of the Americas took place in Los Angeles between June 6 and 10. A strong delegation led by Prime Minister Ariel Henry represented Haiti at this meeting, which brought together the top representatives of the countries of the continent, except for Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Mexico, which withdrew after the decision of the Biden administration not to invite the first three countries.
“Building a sustainable, resilient and equitable future for our hemisphere” was the theme chosen for this great meeting of the heads of state and government of the American continent and the Caribbean.

Back in the country after his stay in Los Angeles, Prime Minister Ariel Henry has made a positive overall assessment of his participation in the Summit and said he is optimistic about the benefits for Haiti in several areas.

Without being specific about the impact of the summit, Ariel reported several bilateral and multilateral meetings held, including a Plan of Action on Health and Resilience in the Americas, a Regional Program for Digital Transformation, an Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance.
The issue of insecurity, migration, transnational crime, climate change, money laundering was during the meetings of the head of government with the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, the Dominican President Luis Abinader among others said Ariel Henry at a press briefing.

The real benefits for Haiti

To learn more, ZoomHaitiNews referred to a press release from the State Department sent to its editors on Monday, June 13, 2022. Three points particularly concern Haiti in this document. First, ”the United States is providing 11,500 H-2B work visas for Central America and Haiti, then, there is talk of a ”resettlement of a greater number of Haitian refugees” and the ”resumption of the program of reunification of Haitian families”.

The global impact of the IX Summit of the Americas

In addition to its specific points, Haiti can expect certain benefits from the four pillars contained in the final declaration, which focus on stability and assistance to communities, the expansion of legal channels, humane migration management and coordinated emergency response.

With regard to stability and assistance to communities, countries such as Belize intend to implement in August 2022 a program to regularize Central American and CARICOM migrants who have been living illegally in the country for a defined period of time. Colombia reaffirmed its commitment to fully implement its announcement of temporary protection status for Venezuelan migrants and refugees displaced in its territory. Regularization permits to a total of 1.5 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees by the end of August 2022.
Costa Rica is committed to preparing for the renewal of the special temporary complementary protection regime for migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba who arrived before March 2020.
Ecuador is considering the provision of identification documents for the regularization process, taking into account the current difficulties faced by Venezuelan citizens. Ecuador intends to extend this process to all Venezuelans.

For its part, the United States will provide additional support for a mechanism to address the migration crisis. Working with Congress, the U.S. government will provide an additional $25 million to the Global Concessional Financing Facility (GCFF) housed at the World Bank to prioritize Latin American countries such as Ecuador and Costa Rica in their recently announced regularization programs for displaced migrant and refugee populations residing within their respective countries.

The United States announces $314 million in new funding from the PRM office and USAID for stabilization activities in the Americas.

For the second pillar, legal channels and protection, the countries of the region have strategically established priority legal channel programs corresponding to the main motivations for migration for employment, protection and family reunification. In this sense, Canada promises to increase the number of refugees resettled from the Americas and intends to receive up to 4,000 people by 2028, thus providing durable solutions for a number of refugees in the region.
Canada also “pledges to address the root causes and is investing $26.9 million in 2022-2023 in additional funding for capacity building related to migration and protection in the Americas. This funding applies to projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean focused on facilitating the socio-economic and labor market integration of refugees and migrants; improving border and migration management systems; the rights of migrants, refugees and host communities; promoting gender equality and inclusive economic growth; and preventing and combating migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons.

Canada is a strong supporter of labour mobility and plans to welcome more than 50,000 agricultural workers from Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean in 2022.
For its part, Guatemala is “approving new legislation to promote legal labor migration programs.

Mexico is to expand the existing border worker card program to an additional 10,000 to 20,000 beneficiaries. The program allows for greater labor mobility to meet the needs of employers in Mexico, promote economic development in Central America and provide an alternative to irregular migration. The country is also expected to launch a new temporary labor program offering employment opportunities in Mexico to 15,000 to 20,000 Guatemalan workers per year while expanding eligibility for this program to include Honduras and El Salvador in the medium term.
Mexico will integrate 20,000 recognized refugees into the Mexican labor market over the next three years.

The U.S. has pledged to begin development of a $65 million USDA pilot program to assist U.S. farmers who hire farm workers under the H-2A program. 11,500 H-2B non-agricultural seasonal worker visas will be granted to nationals from northern Central America and Haiti.”

As an observer, Spain is considering doubling the number of work permits for Hondurans under its circular migration programs.

For the third pillar, human border management, concrete actions must be taken to reduce irregular migration and jointly manage migration throughout the continent. This pillar will be materialized in the future through “humane border enforcement, the return of migrants without need of protection or other legal justification for stay, the facilitation of returns to the most recent countries of residence or origin, support for assisted voluntary returns, and the strengthening of information sharing and bilateral and regional cooperation on the suppression of migrant smuggling and human trafficking.