Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees
BCRW’s Transnational Feminisms Initiative continues our collaboration with Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, a Brooklyn-based organization that has been working for over thirty years to respond to the needs of Haitian refugees and immigrants fleeing persecution. The organization combines direct service, organizing, and political education in the movement to defend Black migrants, stop anti-Black deportation, and end the surveillance and detention of migrants in the United States.
The newest project from this collaboration is Chache Konn Dwa W / Know Your Rights, a video for asylum seekers attempting to access formal immigration status after crossing U.S. borders without authorization. As of their February 1 release, the the know-your-rights videos are being distributed by HWHR to their members and prospective clients who are waiting for services to provide them with baseline information they can use to start navigating their own case, as well as to other immigration rights organizers through social media.
Available in both Kreyòl and English, the video is available for free use on BCRW’s YouTube channel and will continue to be distributed by HWHR to their members and prospective clients, as well as to other immigration rights organizers. The videos were directed by Miriam Neptune (Senior Associate Director, BCRW), produced and edited by Hope Dector (Creative Director, BCRW), and researched and co-written by HWHR staff, Aline Gue (Senior Advocacy Coordinator & DOJ Fully Accredited Representative, TakeRoot Justice) and Melanie Zuch (Senior Staff Attorney in Immigrants’ Rights, TakeRoot Justice).
“There are always more clients that need to be served than lawyers who can serve,” says Ninaj Raoul, co-founder and Director of HWHR. “Our organization consistently has months-long waiting lists for legal clinics, which often leaves people in the position of having to defend themselves in removal proceedings while we advocate for a broader defense (like Temporary Protected Status, a halt in deportations or the closing of a detention facility.)” A recent HWHR legal clinic had a waiting list of over 200 people. Only 22 of them were able to get one-on-one help from an attorney. According to the TRAC Immigration data center, on any given day, over 75,000 Haitian immigrants have deportation cases pending in immigration court. And in 2022, only 21% of immigrants had an attorney present when a removal order was issued. Applicants have the additional challenge of keeping up with rapidly changing immigration policies, such as the Biden administration’s recent decision to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians who arrived before November 6th, 2022, while at the same time denying asylum claims and adding restrictions for Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Cubans applying for humanitarian parole.
About Chache Konn Dwa W / Know Your Rights
While speaking frankly about the racism that undergirds US immigration policies, the videos give basic information about what to expect from ICE and immigration court, how to understand the various kinds of relief available, ways to avoid being exploited by immigration scams, and encouragement to join the movement for immigration rights. The content and the need for a video emerged from years of collaborations between HWHR and TakeRoot Justice of providing Know Your Rights workshops for Haitian refugees arriving in New York City after being processed and detained at US borders. The number of people seeking assistance always exceeded the number of people HWHR and TakeRoot Justice, or any advocacy organization, was able to reach in person. In addition to providing urgent information for self-advocacy and safety in a complicated and often life-threatening system, these videos fill an information void by providing language access for Kreyòl speaking viewers, along with captioning for viewers with disabilities.
“We needed this because there has been such a shortage of qualified legal services. This will allow us to provide pertinent information in a timely manner so that people can exercise self-advocacy to better defend themselves while going through an intentionally complicated immigration process. We took the opportunity to provide political context while helping asylum seekers navigate the process. We’re hoping it can also help spark discussion about the root causes of forced migration,” says Ninaj Raoul, Executive Director of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees.
About Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees (HWHR)
Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees was formed in 1992 to respond to the needs of Haitian asylum seekers who were fleeing political violence and persecution. At that time, President George Bush had ordered Haitian refugees intercepted by boat to be detained at the Guantanamo US Military Base. HWHR co-founders Ninaj Raoul and Lily Cerat were working as as translators at Guantanamo where they witnessed the ability of detainees to organize against the egregious violence they experienced, violence that included sexual assault, forced sterilization, family separation, and denial of asylum to HIV positive detainees. While most of the refugees were repatriated, some were paroled in if they passed a credible fear interview, and some of those would eventually win a suit allowing them to resettle in the US. HWHR became an organization that provided popular education, leadership development, and the tools to engage in collective action for those who settled in New York City. For decades, HWHR has fought alongside other immigrant rights groups to end the draconian policies that were often applied most harshly to Haitian and other Black migrants looking for refuge.
About the Transnational Feminisms Initiative
Transnational Feminisms is an initiative that draws upon BCRW’s longstanding practice of joining scholarship and activism, in this instance, connecting the work of Barnard staff, faculty, and students with feminist scholars and activists around the world. The project has developed innovative curricula and methodologies of study in an age of global learning, and generates scholar-activist projects ranging from arts to direct service resources. Founded by former BCRW Associate Director Catherine Sameh (Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, Irvine) and continued by succeeding Associate Director Tami Navarro (Assistant Professor of Pan-African Studies, Drew University), it is now led by BCRW Senior Associate Director Miriam Neptune.