Rep. Ayanna Pressley reiterated her call Friday for the Biden administration to halt deportations to Haiti following more tumult in the country.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced he would resign this week from exile in Puerto Rico, giving in to the gang violence that's enveloped Port-au-Prince and kept him from returning home. It's the latest development in decades of chaos and instability in the country, including multiple violent coups, American military involvement, the catastrophic 2010 earthquake and the assassination of then-president Jovenel Moïse in 2021.
In that time, hundreds of thousands of people have left Haiti and may have made new homes in the Boston area, which has one of the largest Haitian populations in the country.
Pressley represents many of those transplants and co-chairs the House Haiti Caucus. To improve the situation in Haiti and address the needs of Haitians in the diaspora, the Massachusetts congresswoman says there should be a crackdown on gun trafficking and an end to ongoing deportations.
"Those guns are made here in the U.S.," Pressley said on GBH’s Talking Politics Friday. "They're being trafficked and smuggled to Haiti, which has contributed to this...crisis of economic devastation, political instability, and roiling violence. Just when we think the situation cannot get dire, it gets more dire.
"What we have to focus on now is making Haiti a priority, and we have to save lives, so we have to halt all deportations to Haiti," Pressley added. "They're still happening. That is definitely under the control of the Biden-Harris administration ... To send anyone back to Haiti is nothing short of a death sentence."
Pressley also discussed her recent vote against a proposed ban on TikTok, Gov. Maura Healey's push for marijuana clemency in Massachusetts, and Pressley's own attempts to pass legislation advancing marijuana clemency in Congress, an area where she sees bipartisan support.
"I have seen interest on both sides of the aisle, especially around issues related to cannabis justice," Pressley said. "That does surprise some people, but there is bipartisan interest there."
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