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international relations

Wellness

Respected U.S. diplomat resigns over 'inhumane' treatment of Haitians with scathing letter

Yamiche Alcindor/Twitter, U.S. Department of State

It takes a lot to push a career diplomat to quit their job. A diplomat's specialty, after all, is diplomacy—managing relationships between people and governments, usually with negotiation and compromise.

So when the U.S. special envoy to Haiti, whose "diplomatic experience and demonstrated interagency leadership have been honed directing several of the United States government's largest overseas programs in some of the world's most challenging, high-threat environments," decides to resign effective immediately, it means something.

Daniel Foote, who was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July of this year, explained his decision to quit in a strongly-worded letter to Secretary of State Blinken. His resignation comes in the wake of a wave of Haitian migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border and widespread reports of harsh treatment and deportations.

"I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life," he wrote. "Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my recommendations have been ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own."

Foote went on to describe the dire conditions in Haiti:

"The people of Haiti, mired in poverty, hostage to the terror, kidnappings, robberies, and massacres of armed gang alliances, simply cannot support the forced infusion of thousands of returned migrants lacking food, shelter, and money without additional, avoidable human tragedy. The collapsed state is unable to provide security or basic services, and more refugees will fuel further desperation and crime. Surging migration to our borders will only grow as we add to Haiti's unacceptable misery."

What Haiti needs, Foote wrote, is "immediate assistance" to restore order so they can hold an election for their next president and parliament, as well as humanitarian assistance.

"But what our Haitian friends really want, and need," he wrote, "is the opportunity to chart their own course, without international puppeteering and favored candidates but with genuine support for that course. I do not believe that Haiti can enjoy stability until her citizens have the dignity of truly choosing their own leaders fairly and acceptably."

Finally, he chastised the U.S. and other nations for continuing to intervene in Haiti's politics, pointing out that such policies have never gone well and will only make problems worse:

"Last week, the U.S. and other embassies in Port-au-Prince issued another public statement of support for the unelected, de facto Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry as interim leader of Haiti, and have continued to tout his 'political agreement' over another broader, earlier accord shepherded by civil society. The hubris that makes us believe we should pick the winner—again—is impressive. This cycle of international political interventions in Haiti has consistently produced catastrophic results. More negative impacts to Haiti will have calamitous consequences not only in Haiti, but in the U.S. and our neighbors in the hemisphere."

Of course, this is one man's opinion, albeit a presumably informed one considering his position. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki answered questions about Foote's resignation in a press briefing, with some pushback from the administration:

The most recent upheaval in Haiti comes in the wake of its president being assassinated in July. But Haiti has a long and storied history that's worth learning about to see how the U.S. and other countries have directly contributed to the current economic and humanitarian crises there. (Find an excellent read for that here.) A series of devastating natural disasters in the past couple of decades has added to the nation's suffering as well.

Figuring out the best way to help floundering countries we're partially responsible for crippling and the best way to respond to humans fleeing such places is no simple challenge. But high profile resignations such as Foote's may at least draw people's attention to places like Haiti so that we can learn and understand what has led up to the crises we face now.


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There's a wilderness summer camp for refugees that lets them just be kids.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, might seem like a random place for a refugee family to end up.

But things have gotten so bad in parts of the world — in war-torn Syria, in particular — that thousands of families are entering and spreading across hundreds of different cities in the U.S.

And while New Mexico might not be considered a premiere landing spot (most families end up in New York and California), it's definitely not a bad place to be. Just take a look:

[rebelmouse-image 19529568 dam="1" original_size="735x551" caption="Photo by Christiane Wilden/Good Free Photos." expand=1]Photo by Christiane Wilden/Good Free Photos.

One program in Albuquerque wants to use the area's stunning desert landscape to help refugee kids connect with their new home.

The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance is teaming up with the Catholic Charities Refugee Mentoring Program to take these brand-new New Mexicans out into the wild.

It's a summer camp for kids who are here to find a better life, and it's called the Refugee Wilderness Explorers Program.

All photos by the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, used with permission

"This was a way to connect them to experiences they had where they're from, and make them feel more at home," says Danielle Hernandez, the mentoring program coordinator.

She came up with the idea over a cup of coffee with Endion Schichtel, the Alliance's wilderness narrative coordinator, while the two were brainstorming ideas to keep the kids engaged during summer vacation — a time when they're the most disconnected from their peers and, often, feeling isolated in their new home.

Twice a week, Hernandez and Schichtel take groups of kids out into the wilderness to explore.

Many of them are completely new to America, fresh from places in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South America.

They hike the mountains, explore trails, and stop to identify plants and bugs. The kids are also encouraged to draw or write about the nature they encounter — a good exercise to help them connect with the landscape and practice their English at the same time.

For many of them, this is their first good look at the strange new place they call home.

"One time we were on top of the mountain looking out over the city," Schichtle recalls. "And the kids were [joking], 'I can see the ocean over there! I can see Colorado!' They know they're in America, and they're in New Mexico, but they have no idea where that is. When they first got here, this is not at all what they pictured America looking like. Seeing them have that realization is really special."

But beyond just developing a physical connection to their new home, wilderness camp gives these refugee kids a chance to be just that: kids.

"These kids are often the interpreters for their household; they're often the head of their household," Hernandez says. "They're the only one who knows how to use the bus or make change at the grocery store. They have to interpret medical information for their parents who are often in poor health."

It's a lot for any young person, especially one who's been through what some of these kids have.

So whether you believe in a spiritual connection with nature or not, maybe a chance to play with bugs and goof around with new friends is exactly what these kids need.

"They're just kids," Hernandez says. "And every child needs a childhood."

Heroes

Trump wanted border wall designs. He kind of got the exact opposite.

President Trump wants to build a wall along the U.S./Mexico border. It's not actually him that's going to design and build it, though. As per usual for government projects, they're taking submissions from private contractors.

Each contractor puts forth various costs, designs, and ideas, which Trump was probably figuring would be stuff like wall shapes and structures or types of concrete.

But, well, not everyone did that.

Instead of a border wall, a group of designers has proposed a different take on the idea of a border altogether.

All images from Otra Nation. Used with permission.

The MADE Collective, a group of 14 planners, architects, and engineers, want to replace the idea of a wall with something the world's never seen before — turning the border into a kind shared utopia. They're calling their project Otra Nation.

The most visually striking aspect of their idea is to replace the big concrete wall concept with a sleek, sexy hyperloop.

Hyperloops are a kind of theoretical superfast train-in-a-tube, which would make traveling along the border quicker and easier than ever. Stops would stretch west from San Diego and Tijuana east to Brownsville and Matamoros on the very southern tip of Texas. Connections would also branch off to cities such as San Francisco, Sante Fe, Dallas, and Mexico City.

If the hyperloop matched the kinds of speed Elon Musk's take on the idea proposes, a person could travel the entire border in less than three hours.

That's already an amazingly ambitious idea, but buckle your seatbelts (do hyperloops have seatbelts?), it gets bigger.

To go along with the easier travel, Otra Nation would also include a regional ID card and tweaked border control laws, which would let people easily flow between the United States and Mexico.

Nature-lovers and green techies would get some goodies too. The plan would make the border a "zero-extraction" zone (meaning no mining or oil drilling), remove the 700 miles of fencing already there, restore natural areas like wetlands and forests, and install 90,000 square kilometers of solar panel stations, which if you don't know, is a whole hell of a lot of solar power.

But it gets even better. The most ambitious idea is who'd own this strip of land. Or, more precisely, who wouldn't own it.

While both nations would work together to build up the infrastructure, the area would be given a degree of autonomy. This would effectively turn the border into a shared, self-governing territory, what the MADE Collective is calling a "co-nation."

A co-nation. A little baby nation with the U.S. and Mexico as the proud parents. It'd be something we've never seen before and could change how we see international relations altogether.

Otra Nation currently has a petition on Change.org. If they get 250,000 signatures, they say they'll get the proposal hand-delivered to the presidents of both nations.

The MADE designers acknowledge the idea has a million-to-one shot, but they're serious about it.

The idea may seem a bit far-fetched, and it'll certainly require more schematics, legislation, and paperwork than their relatively brief proposal sets out.

But, well, it's estimated that Trump’s wall is going to end up costing more than $20 billion ($5 billion more than Otra Nation is asking for) and might not even work. If we're going to drop that much money on a grand idea, why not aim for something truly revolutionary?

People often say "build bridges, not walls." This would be one hell of a bridge.

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