Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
CNN just reported that US companies are moving manufacturing to the Dominican Republic. But don’t be fooled by talk of reshoring. This isn’t patriotism — it’s proximity-enabled exploitation. And iPINIONS fears that Haitians, yet again, will pay the price. Read my take on Substack: The Sweatshop Next Door… Read more.
[Author’s Note: This commentary was originally published on March 31, 2005. Sadly, 20 years later, the more things have changed elsewhere, the more they’ve stayed the same in Haiti. So I’ve updated it — with a few new facts and, alas, the same old misery and hypocrisy.] Haitian migrants aren’t causing a crisis so much… Read more.
A few weeks ago, I observed that Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” comes across like a beat cop playing a military general without having to do so under enemy fire. Listening to him, you’d think he was gearing up for war with Russia, not rounding up scared immigrants like a farmer herding cattle. The Dominican… Read more.
Violence breaks out in Kenya The UN deploys international police forces to impose law and order in beleaguered countries. But nobody in their right mind thinks Kenyan police have a snowball’s chance in hell of doing that in Haiti. The Kenyan police landed yesterday. But nothing betrayed the folly of their mission quite like Kenya… Read more.
US abandons Haiti It’s not quite as desperate as the way the US abandoned Vietnam or as chaotic as the way it abandoned Afghanistan. But the way the US is abandoning Haiti is even more shameless and unconscionable. The Department of State warned in a statement of a high threat of violent crime and kidnapping throughout the [country]. It… Read more.
As the first planeloads of angry Haitian migrants arrived in Port-au-Prince on Sunday after being repatriated from the U.S.-Mexico border, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security defended the deportations, saying misinformation is behind the attempts to enter the United States. Emphasizing that the administration is accelerating repatriation flights to Haiti and possibly other… Read more.
A major earthquake struck western Haiti on Saturday, likely causing high casualties and widespread disaster, the U.S. Geological Survey said, and sending shock waves across the Caribbean, where people fled their homes for fear they might collapse. The 7.2-magnitude earthquake quake struck 8 km (5 miles) from the town of Petit Trou de Nippes, about… Read more.
Reports have abounded for years about peacekeepers and aid workers preying on the hapless people they are supposed to be protecting and aiding, respectively. And they have perpetrated their abuses in refugee camps or safe zones from Asia to the Caribbean and all points in between. Here in part is how I commented on this… Read more.
Of course, only an asshole like him would do so. President Trump’s dismissal of Haiti, El Salvador and all of Africa as ‘shithole countries’ whose inhabitants are not desirable for U.S. immigration shocked people around the world and provoked swift condemnation. The president made the remarks Thursday during a White House meeting with lawmakers and suggested… Read more.
I appreciate your inquiries about how my family and friends in the Caribbean weathered Matthew. Even though proverbial sitting ducks, they all hunkered down, and we all prayed for the best. Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into the Bahamas early on Thursday and intensified as it barreled toward the southeastern… Read more.
