The 2021 Haitian migration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border stirred many emotions and became a reminder of the unequal treatment of Black migrants by the United States government. In addition, the United States has not had a positive track record in Haiti and has often supported leaders that are the target of antigovernmental protests or not supporting those embraced by the population. In this episode, Alexanderia Haidara sits down with Senior Reporter for the Miami Herald, Jacqueline Charles, to discuss how the history of U.S.-Haitian relations has impacted the current political and security crisis plaguing the country. We discuss the outcome of the investigation of U.S. Border Patrol agents riding on horseback whipping Haitian back across the Rio Grande River. Given the focus of President Biden on immigration, how are his policies being received by those advocates promoting fair treatment of migrants from Haiti and African nations? How will President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau work together to address political insecurity, the rise of gang violence, and kidnappings? What is the role of the Haitian Diaspora in America to influence U.S. policy and local politics? We also reflected on the impact of the January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on other democracies in Latin America. Please write a review!
About Jacqueline Charles,
Jacqueline Charles is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Emmy Award-winning Caribbean correspondent at the Miami Herald. She began her journalism career at the Herald as a 14-year-old high school intern before graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she was later honored for her contributions to the field of journalism as a 2022 inductee into the NC Media & Journalism Hall of Fame.
Charles' assignments have taken her throughout the Caribbean as well as Liberia, Kenya, Italy, and in recent years, Mexico, Canada, and Chile to report on the plight of Haitian migrants.
She is a founding member of the Carolina Association of Black Journalists, a college-affiliated chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). She is also a past president and scholarship chairwoman of the South Florida Black Journalists Association and a longtime assistant director of the University of Miami/Dow Jones High School Journalism Workshop.
The first to tell the world that then-Haitian President René Préval had survived the devastating January 12, 2010, earthquake, she spent 18 months living in Haiti as part of the Miami Herald's commitment to have a journalist stationed full time after the tragedy.
Charles served as co-producer on the Emmy-winning documentary on Haiti, Nou Bouke (We are Fed Up), which was broadcast in more than 50 PBS markets in the United States.
Her numerous other awards include NABJ Journalist of the Year for her Haiti earthquake coverage, and she was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist for that same coverage. She was also recognized for her contributions to the Miami Herald's Panama Papers investigation, which was awarded a 2017 Pulitzer Prize. In 2018, she won the Maria Moors Cabot Award, the oldest prize in journalism and the most prestigious for coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Her 2018 Pulitzer Center-supported reporting series, Cancer in Haiti, was the recipient of numerous awards, including the The AACR June L. Biedler Prize for Cancer Journalism.
Charles is a longtime member of NABJ and currently serves as a member of UNC's Hussman School of Journalism and Media's Board of Advisers. In 2015 she was recognized by UNC as a Distinguished Alumni.
Credits:
Host, Producer and Editor: Alexanderia Haidara