Last week, the People’s Organization for Progress (P.O.P.) stood with elected officials and community leaders at a press conference organized by the National Haitian American Official Network (NHAEON) – NJ Chapter in East Orange, N.J.
The press conference was held to express outrage at the treatment Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas experienced at the hands of border patrol agents and to demand changes to federal government immigration policies and procedures.
The General Assembly of the People’s Organization for Progress voted to condemn the inhumane treatment and deportation of Haitians at the border, and salute the U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti Daniel Foote, acknowledging his resignation as indicative of the need for the Biden administration to develop an entirely new policy toward Haiti and Haitian migrants.
“The scenes of border patrol agents whipping the Black Haitian migrants was reminiscent of slave patrols and overseers chasing down enslaved Black people during the era of slavery in the United States,” said P.O.P. chairman Larry Hamm. “The People’s Organization for Progress demands that those border patrol agents be fired immediately.”
P.O.P and NHAEON are also demanding that whippings and the use of horses cease immediately and that the practices be permanently prohibited. They want deportations of Haitians currently in progress to be immediately halted and that Haitian migrants be granted asylum.
Haiti has been inundated by earthquakes, hurricanes, poverty, and the political assassination of their president.
“The People’s Organization for Progress demands self-determination for the island nation of Haiti and justice for the Haitian people wherever they are,” Hamm said. “The current crises that have befallen Haiti and its people didn’t suddenly occur. They are the end result of centuries of western and U.S. imperialism, slavery, racism, colonialism, and neocolonialism.”
Along with their support for Haitian migrants, P.O.P. is continuing their fight against police brutality. This month, the organization is putting together The Long March for Justice: March To Trenton For Police Accountability, Social Justice, And Economic Progress. Hamm and others will march 67 miles from Montclair to Trenton.
The march will begin at 11 a.m on Oct. 11 at the intersection of Church Street and Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair. The group expects to reach Trenton on Oct. 15. The march will proceed through 22 New Jersey towns. It is expected that it will be joined by support rallies in marches in several of those communities.