The stories are alarming: Venezuelan immigrants disappeared into El Salvador’s mega prison; international pro-Palestinian students spirited away to remote ICE facilities to be covertly deported; terrorized refugees snatched off streets without legal recourse by masked hitmen. The Trump Administration is openly targeting people of color as enemies.

This frightening specter of racial exclusion and despotic power is not new to Haitians. Haiti’s role in the defeat of slavery won the enmity of France and the U.S. centuries ago. In 1825, France surrounded Port-au-Prince with warships and forced Haiti to pay a massive ransom as the price for ending slavery and gaining independence. In the end, what Haitians call the “independence debt” amounted to $115 billion and sent Haiti spiralling into poverty.

Trump’s overtly anti-Black attacks are simply the latest in a long line of attempts to target Haitians. From Virginia Black Codes to Guantanamo internment to mass expulsions at Del Rio, TX, Haitians have been systematically denied US entry, no matter which political party holds power. Now the Trump administration aims to strip legal US residency and work permits from Haitians enrolled in Temporary Protected Status [TPS] and the Haitian Family Reunification [CHNV] Parole program. This sinister and illegal move, now facing judicial challenge, puts close to half a million Haitians at risk of deportation to a shattered country that US foreign policy has reduced to “hell on earth.”

Since the 2004 US-backed overthrow of democratic President Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haiti has been ruled by corrupt puppet governments promoted by the US, France and Canada in league with Haiti’s tiny billionaire class – their power reinforced by armed paramilitary violence. High-caliber weapons terrorizing Haitian communities come from the United States. Violations of Haitian sovereignty and human rights are enabled by a racist narrative that the Haitian people are expendable. But the Haitian people know who they are. Their dignity, their struggle for democracy and justice, will not be crushed.