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The Signs of the Times

More than half of the people in Haiti are facing severe hunger, with at least 8,000, specifically among those displaced and living in tent camps, facing starvation. Gang violence killed 5,600 people in 2024, with more than a million people displaced. The violence, death, hunger and displacement are a result of weak U.S. gun laws and weak enforcement that enriches manufacturers and dealers and enables illegal gun trafficking across the Caribbean.

Similarly, trafficking guns across the border with Mexico fuels gang violence across Latin America, which is a leading cause of migrants pleading for asylum at our borders. We destroy their countries, and then we treat them with heartless disregard, casual cruelty, and abuse, when they take the initiative to seek a new life.

Heartless disregard for human life and dignity actually defines the current administration. We fought WWII in part because of Nazi concentration camps. We engaged in the Cold War in part because of Stalin's gulags. Now we are shipping people to the 21 Century version of concentration camps and gulags, the prisons in El Salvador, without due process or any hope of ever getting out. Rule of law is one of the things that has always made our country great. The fight to prevent extra-judiciary expulsions, and detentions, is an existential fight for the soul of this country.

The administration plans to designate Haiti's gangs as foreign terrorists. At face value this could be a good thing, opening up the possibility of additional sanctions, as well as holding arms dealers and manufacturers accountable. But Quixote Center cannot support it, because this is the same designation they gave the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which they used as an excuse to expel Venezuelans to Salvadoran gulags without due process. We support sanctions against proven gang members and those who finance them. We support all legal measures to hold those responsible for weapons trafficking accountable. We do not support suspension of due process or rule of law.

In addition to the projects described in the next pages, which address food insecurity and household income, Quixote Center staff continues to advocate with US government officials to end weapons trafficking, to save our asylum system, and for common sense measures to expand legal pathways, such as work visas. Immigrants form a crucial part of the American economy and way of life, and we have their backs.

 

Sign our PETITION:
Suggested Actions to Stem Crisis in Haiti

Haiti is suffering from an acute humanitarian crisis of violence and food insecurity, fueled by weapons and ammunition trafficked from the United States. Over a million Haitians are displaced as a result of the violence, and everyone is living in fear. In this context, the United States is rescinding Temporary Protected Status for Haitians who are here legally, and is continuing to deport Haitians back to Haiti, a country that is in no position to receive them.

We are collecting signatures for the Department of Homeland Security to end illegal trafficking of weapons and ammunition to Haiti, to protect Haitians already in this country, and to end deportation flights to Haiti. We plan to deliver the petitions in person at a public action and press conference in May.

We invite you to sign the petition, and forward it to your friends and colleagues. Thank you for your support.

Petition ([link removed])

 

Haiti Reborn

New Project Update: Gouin, Haiti

Last fall, in partnership with Haitian Christian Community Development (DCCH), we conducted a survey of 102 farmers in Gouin, located in the Les Cayes Commune, where farming is the main source of income for most families, but also where 84% of families barely subsist on what they produce.

The survey's goal was to determine the standard of living, knowledge, attitudes and current practices of farmers, and their resource capacities.

The results were alarming: Farmers had little-to-no access to training in current best practices, especially those used for combating the effects of climate change. As a group, they knew little about the connection between the health of their local environment and that of their families, crops and livestock.Record-keeping of yearly expenditures and revenue was uncommon. Affordable credit was limited; attitudes toward obtaining credit were negative since interest rates seemed unfair. Farmers worked individually, rarely forming groups to address common problems.

In January, data in hand, DCCH and the impacted local farmers, in partnership with Quixote Center, launched an action plan. The participants are the protagonists of this initiative and are included in the decision-making process so that they feel complete ownership of the project.

DCCH convened information sharing sessions where they discussed sustainable land development and the benefits of a community credit union. As a result, they established two credit unions. Small holder farmers pool their own resources and approve small loans with interest determined by the credit union members. At the end of the year membership divides the interest among themselves. They have already approved several small loans for purchasing seeds and fertilizer. The group is also cultivating additional plots of land and planting with tomatoes, corn and peas. Income from the harvest will improve household food security and will also be used to repay loans.

We have also designed benchmarks to use in measuring progress--what works and what doesn't. We plan to measure and report progress, and make adjustments based on the data.

Read our partner's full report HERE ([link removed]).

Technician explaining how to compost

Solid waste management training

Community planting tomatoes

Training on capacity strengthening

 

Strengthening Reforestation,
seedling projects in Gros Morne, Haiti

Quixote Center continues to support the agro-foresty programs at the JMV Agricultural Center in Grepen, located in the Gros Morne Commune.

The Commune's Tet Mountain is the site of the reforestation project, which has been the beneficiary of the Center's support, and that of our partners, the Montfortain Fathers, Caritas, and the RJM Sisters, for the past 25 years. What started out as a barren 14-acre plot alongside the mountain, today is a healthy forest that helps mitigate the chronic flooding and topsoil erosion that regularly devastates the community. Our funding covers the costs of maintaining and securing the forest. It also supports planting new trees, such as moringa, which has edible leaves and seed pods. Over the next 5 years, with our support, our partners hope to expand the forest to cover 20 acres.

Grepen is also the site of the tree nursery and demonstration garden. This project faced especially tough challenges in recent months due to gang violence and unpredictable cycles of drought and flooding. Despite these incredible odds, farmers manage to plant, cultivate and harvest seedlings from the nursery, which they realize offers hope for their families' futures. Our funding enables the tree nursery to cultivate and sell thousands of seedlings. The demonstration garden provides training to local farmers on current best practices for achieving sustainable sources of food and income, and also cultivates food crops for sale in the local market.

Workshop for Farmers

Preparation of seedlings

Weeding of seedlings

Seedlings ready for transplant

Please consider contributing to our campaign to provide to emergency assistance to families displaced by violence and deportation by visiting this site: bit.ly/GrosMorneHaiti
or scanning this QR code

 

MIGRANT JUSTICE

Assisting refugees stranded
in Panama and Costa Rica

Physically and mentally exhausted, fearful, hungry, stateless, desperate and hopeless. These are words that best describe the status of thousands of stranded migrants. Migrants from dozens of Asian andAfrican countries were expelled to Panama and Costa Rica on US on government flights, without due process. Some have been able to move on, but a group of 130 is trapped in detention in Costa Rica, and another group is living in a gymnasium in Panama. Other groups of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, left their home countries but are unable to claim asylum in the US or anywhere else, and do not feel safe returning to their countries of origin.

The Franciscan Network for Migrants [RFM], one of Quixote's partners, is committed to alleviating the suffering of migrants traveling through Central America and Mexico. It bases its efforts on the Franciscan call "to be agents of peace and hospitality, accompanying those in situations of mobility and vulnerability."

Already a presence in Panama and helping weary travelers who emerged from the Darien Pass on their way north, now RFM is providing humanitarian assistance thousands of migrants coming from the opposite direction.

Quixote Center Staff members Kim Lamberty and Fred Schick led a solidarity trip to Panama in March where they saw firsthand just how desperate the situation is. Thanks to the generosity of our donors,Quixote Center supports RFM's work in Paso Canoas, Miramar, and at the Miraculous Medal shelter inDavid. The funding covers essential services: food, shelter, medical care, personal hygiene kits, psychological and emotional support, and access to information on immigrants' rights and migration procedures. Overall, the project seeks to improve the conditions of extremely vulnerable migrants and facilitate their transition, while maintaining human dignity and social justice

Migration detention center in Costa Rica

Miramar, Panama
parish meal program

Building repurposed to Shelter migrants

Fe y Alegria Shelter in Panama City

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