Members of Elite Haiti Police Force Lost in New York as Asylum Seekers and Parolees
Highly trained Haitian police officers are seeking asylum in New York amid the force's decline while the U.S. backs Kenya to fight the criminal gangs in Haiti.
RALPH THOMASSAINT JOSEPH
JUN 28, 2024
When Roodolphe Nicolas met with Cosby Jean-Charles at a McDonald’s in the Flatlands neighborhood of Southeast Brooklyn, their eyes constantly scanned the room.
They were looking for danger, they said, and had developed this reflex beginning in 2017, as police officers patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. Back then and now, members of Haiti’s national police force were prime targets for gang members, and seven years later, the situation has only worsened. On Tuesday, a UN sanctioned mission of Kenyan troops arrived in Haiti to battle the gangs.
Standing at a playground, Nicolas and Jean-Charles recalled sitting inside armored vehicles; hearing officers shooting at gang members, the smell of spent cartridges, the thud of bullets hitting the vehicle’s exterior.
Now their lives have taken a new direction.
Jean-Charles is a security agent at John F. Kennedy Airport. Nicolas briefly found work as a parking valet in Manhattan for one month until his work permit expired. The two men are connected to a larger group of police officers who, like them, have left Haiti to live across the United States as asylum seekers or parolees.
https://documentedny.com/2024/06/28/haiti-police-kenya-asylum/
