Senator Calls for More Sanctions on Haitian Gangs, Enablers
Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., urged the Trump administration May 12 to impose additional sanctions on those fueling unrest in Haiti.
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In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Shaheen said further action is needed because Haiti is in danger of becoming a failed state due to powerful criminal gangs and the political and economic elites who support them. Haitian elites who are already sanctioned include former President Michel Martelly and former parliament member Prophane Victor (see 2408200011) and 2409260002).
To strengthen Rubio’s toolkit, Shaheen said she plans to reintroduce a companion bill to the House’s Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act, which would require the State Department to sanction Haitian political and economic elites involved in criminal activity. The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the bill April 9 (see 2504090052).
Shaheen, however, said she is “deeply skeptical” about labeling Haitian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, as Rubio did in early May (see 2505020026). Such designations “may hamper the provision of humanitarian assistance and make it more difficult to rehabilitate Haitian minors coerced into these groups,” she wrote. “I am also concerned that some of the Haitian actors calling for FTO designations are the same actors with known links to Haitian criminal gangs.”
To stem the illegal flood of U.S.-made guns to Haitian gangs (see 2409270057), Shaheen urged Rubio to work with other federal agencies and the Dominican Republic to improve illicit firearms tracing and recovery in Haiti.
"There are as many as 500,000 illicit firearms in Haiti’s criminal market, the vast majority of which are trafficked to Haiti from the United States," she wrote. "Ending Haiti’s gang violence is not possible without taking our own concrete steps to investigate and dismantle this arms trafficking network."
The State Department had no immediate comment on the letter.