Florida Lawmakers Warn Illegal Immigrants from Haiti Could Soon Surge

The United States has no plans to send troops to Haiti as it spirals into chaos; it also has no current plans to activate its “maritime mass migration” protocol to allow the Coast Guard and Navy to interdict illegal immigrant flotillas and return them to their point of origin or to a port in a third nation, a top Defense official says.

“The government has been thrown out and, as a Florida man, I’m deeply concerned about this wave of people that we’re about to have coming from Haiti,” Mr. Gaetz said. He predicted that what is now a trickle leaving the island “will accelerate” in coming weeks.

South Florida’s Broward and Palm Beach counties have been prime destinations for Haitians, many arriving illegally, for years, he said. He noted that “they don’t disperse throughout the country, they stay in southeast Florida.”

South Florida is bracing for refugees fleeing Haiti to end up on its shores, Mr. Gaetz said, wondering if the Pentagon, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security, among others, are also wondering about it and planning for what many see as inevitable.

“So what are we doing to prepare for that wave and to ensure that these people are not paroled into the United States, as the administration has done with people on the southern border, but instead are repatriated back at the dock at Port-au-Prince?” he asked Ms. Zimmerman.

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“Congressman,” she replied, “we’re doing a number of things to ensure that we’re keeping track of the situation and we’re prepared. At the moment, we have not yet seen large numbers, what we would characterize as a ‘maritime mass migration.’ But we are alert to that possibility.”

Bush Executive Order Allows Navy to Interdict

Ms. Zimmerman explained that “specific legal authorities” under an executive order issued by President George W. Bush allow “any president to designate an anticipated maritime mass migration [to allow] ‘gray hull’ naval vessels into the Straits of Florida to deter that migration and then to reach those people before they get to Florida.”

She said that seminal executive order was recently buttressed with “some additional assistance that [the Pentagon] can provide to the Coast Guard,” which is already heavily engaged in Haiti, adding she’d be surprised “if we haven’t already provided additional shipboard assistance” to the Coast Guard, State Department, and others involved in protecting and evacuating Americans in Haiti.

Haiti declared a state of emergency last week when fighting escalated between government forces and criminal gangs, while Prime Minister Ariel Henry was in Kenya seeking to seal a deal for a long-delayed U.N.-backed security mission to restore order in the country, which has been grappling with gang violence since the 2021 assassination of former President Jovenel Moise.

While Kenya announced in 2023 that it would lead the force, months of domestic legal wrangling have effectively placed the mission on hold.

Mr. Ariel, who has been in Puerto Rico since leaving Kenya, said on March 12 that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created.

“The situation on the ground remains dire” in Haiti, CARICOM said in a March 11 statement, citing days-long gunfights between criminal gangs and Haiti’s National Police and the escape of about 4,000 male inmates from Haiti’s largest prison.

“I think you’re right that the deteriorating conditions in Haiti could very well press more people” to Florida’s shores, Ms. Zimmerman told Mr. Gaetz.

Request to Request

Mr. Gaetz asked Army Gen. Laura Richardson, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, if it would be her “best military advice” that we “activate the authorities anticipating a mass migration.”

“We are ready if we need to deal with a mass migration,” Gen. Richardson said. “We did a full walkthrough of our contingency plan on ‘Gitmo’ [U.S. Navy base and military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] last summer with all of the interagency and all of our components.”

So “we don’t have to go drop these folks off at ‘Gitmo’ where they become a burden on the U.S. taxpayer,” Mr. Gaetz pressed the general to make a request for the “gray hull” Navy ships in anticipation of a mass migration event.

“We can interdict at sea and then repatriate directly at Port-au-Prince,” he said about a U.S. military presence off Florida’s shores.

Gen. Richardson said she would talk to the Coast Guard to assess the need for such a move.

“If there’s a need for that, I would absolutely request it,” she said.

“Thank you for that because I really think getting ahead of this will ensure that humanitarian conditions will be far better, that we could perhaps deter” Haitians from fleeing by sea to Florida, Mr. Gaetz said.

No US Troops

Rep. Jan Kiggins (R-Va.), noting the U.S. Embassy has been reinforced with additional security, cited “talks of sending perhaps military” as well other assistance.

“Is there a possibility of us sending our troops to that region?” she asked Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, who leads the Northern American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command, which includes Haiti.

However, Mr. Giménez noted, “You can put the entire U.S. Navy and Coast Guard in the Florida Strait and it won’t mean anything if policy is bad.”

And policy is bad, he stated.

“Do you know what the Biden administration policy is if we faced a mass migration from Haiti?“ he asked Gen. Zimmerman. ”What is the Biden administration policy?”

“I think our policy remains as it has been; that we will endeavor to conduct repatriation as soon as practicable,” she replied.

“So you expect that anybody interdicted on the way the United States will be returned back to Haiti, back to their country of origin?” Mr. Giménez then asked.

“That is pursuant to laws and policy,” Ms. Zimmerman said.

“Okay,” Mr. Giménez said, concluding with a question spoken as a statement. “And you haven’t heard otherwise from the Biden administration.”