Bolivia, a risky passage for Haitian migrants seeking to reach the US

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Many Haitians, some with their entire families, leave from Brazil in the hope of being able to reach the United States.

Still, their long overland journey includes Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and several Central American countries as far as Mexico, according to testimony known to France 24 news on the Bolivian-Peruvian border and reports from official sources.

Their journey is mostly from the east (Santa Cruz) to Bolivia’s west (La Paz). However, the police have also stopped buses with migrants in other regions of the country that were also aiming to reach the Bolivian town of Desaguadero, separated by a river from the Peruvian city of the same name, and where every day, according to Peruvian sources, up to 400 Haitians arrive from Bolivia, crossing the border in the early hours of the morning.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Bolivia

“Bolivia is mistreating the Haitians. Everywhere they ask for money. If one does not pay 20, 50 dollars, they do not let them pass (…) I have a Brazilian document, but they do not let them pass; I have an identity card, but they do not let them pass; I have a Brazilian son, but they do not let them pass”, denounced Ronald Pierrere about the Bolivian police and migratory controls.

Pierrere, who is traveling with his wife and a baby, was at the bus terminal of the Peruvian Desaguadero together with some thirty compatriots, several of whom prefer not to identify themselves, but ‘off the record’ pointed out that in Bolivia Haitians are victims of robbery, extortion, must sleep in the streets or courts and denounce that deportations do not consider that there are children in the families forced to return to the Brazilian border.

MORE THAN 5,400 EXPULSIONS DURING 2021

Between January and last August, more than 5,400 Haitians were detained and expelled from Bolivia for not complying with “the current migratory regulations” and the sanitary measures of the country to control the pandemic, according to the National Director of Migration, Katherine Calderón.

The Haitians who try to cross Bolivia and seek to go to the United States come mostly from Brazil and Chile, countries where 200,000 Haitian residents settled after the earthquake suffered in Haiti in 2010.

There are frequent images in the local media of dozens of Haitians detained in Migration offices, spending the night in courts or coliseums, or being notified to leave the country, which has caused concern in state institutions and humanitarian organizations.

Nevertheless, police and Immigration operations continue, such as the one last week in the Chuquisaca region (southeast), when agents stopped two buses carrying 60 Haitians to the Peruvian border because, according to police sources, the Bolivian drivers missed a checkpoint near the city of Sucre. The authorities ordered them to return to the Brazilian border within 72 hours.

The police assure that they respect the rights of the Haitians and that their operations are not to arrest the migrants and even give the Haitians the possibility to stay overnight in Catholic Church shelters, where they stay for hours before their deportation.

The head of the Special Anti-Crime Force of El Alto, Colonel Limbert Coca, told France 24 that the focus is on those who capture foreigners and move them around the country: “Haitian nationals are victims of these individuals who are dedicated to smuggling migrants.”

More than 20 people have been charged this year for the crime of smuggling migrants in the country, most of them arrested in El Alto, where Haitians take cabs and buses to the Peruvian border, which is two hours away.

Police have also warned that migrant smugglers have begun to use hermetically sealed trucks for transfers in inhumane conditions.

In addition, the altitude above sea level in the western regions is causing serious health problems for the migrants, according to authorities.

Last July, the police in El Alto (4,000 meters above sea level) reported the death of a 43-year-old Haitian woman who was six months pregnant after fainting in a bus and who, according to her partner’s statements, was “hurt by the altitude and the climate change”.

In August, another 30-year-old woman died while being transported to a medical center from the Oruro bus terminal (3,750 meters above sea level) because of the altitude to which “the victim was not accustomed” coming from a warm place, according to Oruro prosecutor David Vargas.

The Bolivian altitude causes respiratory problems in foreigners, including athletes, and adaptation periods are necessary to travel in these territories. A decree allows Haitians to reside in Bolivia, although they only want to pass through the country.

The government of Luis Arce has stressed the importance of respecting the human rights of migrants, but at the same time has ruled out the possibility of granting a humanitarian transit visa because the Haitians violated the rules for leaving Brazil and entering Bolivia.

However, the government recently approved a decree of exceptional migratory regularization for all undocumented foreigners with the possibility of residency for up to two years.

Although the rule is generic, it would allow Haitians to stay in Bolivia if they so wish.

The Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, explained that Haitians only use Bolivia as a transit territory. Still, it is necessary to give them documentation “so that they are not extorted by Bolivian or foreign citizens, nor by any competent authority of the central level of the Bolivian State.”

The Ombudsman, Nadia Cruz, highlighted the regulation as a migratory amnesty so that the population in an irregular situation can exercise their rights. However, in the specific case of Haitians, she favors granting a humanitarian transit visa and that the issue is dealt with at the level of the States involved in the migration problem.

Cruz told France 24 that this transit facilitation could reduce the vulnerability of Haitians to “irregular groups” of migrant smugglers operating at border posts, where she has also called for an investigation of the migration officials who issue expulsion orders and the alleged charges they would make.

“That is why it is important to consider this issue within the State, either through amnesty, transit visa, through humanitarian visa, but mainly in the region so that the States understand that the closing of borders is generating crime at this time,” said Cruz.

The latest earthquake and the political crisis provoked by the assassination of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, has once again put the Caribbean nation in the focus of interest and international solidarity, the same that the migrants who cross Bolivian territory every day expect.