Tagged: Haiti Earthquake

When an earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, the United States stopped deporting Haitian immigrants to the devastated nation. But deportations resumed last January, and Franco Coby, 24, of Fort Myers, found himself banished from the country he grew up in since the age of 6.

If you’ve ever visited Little Haiti, you’ve probably seen Miami muralist Serge Toussaint’s work, which is sprinkled throughout the city. How can you tell it’s his work? His signature is a dollar sign instead of an “S” in Serge. He spends most of his time in Little Haiti, but his work can be seen in Liberty City, Little River, Allapattah, the Miami River and all the way to Fort Lauderdale.

After the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, thousands of Haitians fled to South Florida to escape the devastation in their country. Some were able to leave Haiti on tourist visas. Others came as guardians to their injured children. No matter how they came to the country, most have been living in limbo in the United States.

In March, 150 nations pledged more than $5 billion dollars to rebuild Haiti.  Construction firms around the world, and especially in South Florida, began jockeying for those funds.  Developers and planners from South Florida bid on contracts to build roads, construct housing, and remove debris.  And not just developers and planners.  Even Royal Caribbean, based in Miami, bid on housing contracts.

After the earthquake, nine-year-old Peterson Exais was trapped under rubble for four days. Once he was rescued, Peterson was rushed to a tent hospital in Port-au-Prince.  Chad Perlyn was the first doctor available. He is a pediatric plastic surgeon at Miami Children’s Hospital.

Perlyn knew the tent hospital was not equipped to treat Peterson. So he put the boy on a list for treatment at one of the U.S. hospitals that were tending to young earthquake victims– hospitals in far-flung cities like Orlando, Atlanta, and Philadelphia.

After January’s massive earthquake, thousands of Haitians fled to the United States. More than 2,500 of them were school-aged kids who were quickly placed in classrooms across South Florida.

The new students were suddenly immersed in a foreign language, culture, and school system.  It could have been a bewildering experience.  But at Boyd Anderson High School in Lauderdale Lakes, the Haitian students who lived in South Florida before the quake took the recent arrivals under their wings.

A few days after the earthquake, the U.S. government decided that Haitians living in the United States would be eligible for Temporary Protected Status, or TPS.  However, there has been much confusion about who can apply, how you apply and what happens after you apply for TPS.

For example, only Haitians who were living in the United States before the earthquake are eligible for TPS.  As Alicia Zuckerman discovered, some Haitians refer to TPS as “Ti Pelen Sosyal”– Kreyol for “L’il Social Trap”– because they fear that they may be deported if they apply.