Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the way the Biden administration handles the first boat of Haitian migrants en route to the Florida Keys amid the Caribbean country’s current state of emergency will determine whether or not another mass migration crisis will rock the U.S. in addition to the one unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Boatloads of Haitian migrants are currently en route to the Florida Keys as armed gangs have taken over the Caribbean country.
Bensman said if the Biden administration welcomes and processes the first boatload of migrants fleeing Haiti, a “marine mass migration” of more Haitians will follow.
“We need to watch this situation very carefully to see what the Biden administration does, because if the Biden administration does not interdict them at sea and return them to their homeland, or maybe to Guantanamo Bay – which is where there’s an American military base and lets them go into Florida and free into Florida – then you will see a really mass migration by sea, a marine mass migration involving these Haitians,” Bensman explained on Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. “If you let the first boatloads in, which apparently they have, and don’t change that policy, then there’s going to be big trouble over on the Eastern seaboard.”
Bensman went on to explain how past U.S. presidents used “deterrence policies” to shut down mass migration via the sea by Haitian migrants, however, said that the Biden administration’s alleged plan is to have the Coast Guard follow the migrants to shore and not interdict them at sea.
“I do have a contact in the vicinity who’s in a position to know what border patrol agents are being told in that area. This is not corroborated. I only have it from one, but it was a really good source. The Biden administration does not plan to interdict them at sea, but rather to have the Coast Guard follow them into shore and let them land just to make sure nobody drowns along the way, capsizes or anything like that,” Bensman said.
“If that’s the case, if they pursue that policy, then I see no reason why we would not have one of those mass marine migrations from Haiti right now because the state has collapsed. It is a failed state now for sure,” Bensman added.
Bensman said the Biden administration should instead redirect migrants to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba while an “international coalition of troops and soldiers” are sent to Haiti in order to stabilize the country back to a state of which migrants could be sent back to.
“If you let them in, then the masses will come behind them,” Bensman said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “1999 Haitian Boat Lift” by US Coast Guard.
