Haiti, a vulnerable Caribbean country in our own hemisphere, is beset with political instability, a catastrophic and worsening security collapse, and a humanitarian crisis that has triggered unbearable human cost, internal displacement, and uncontrolled migration, including to the United States.
There has been no elected government for five years and no elections since 2016. The last sitting president was assassinated in 2021. There is no functioning parliament. While general elections are scheduled for August and December, there’s no guarantee this timeline will hold. Armed gangs control large swaths of Port-au-Prince and key transit routes. And people are starving.
The United States, along with allies and partners, private philanthropists and international organizations, should simultaneously address the political, security, humanitarian and migration issues with targeted, concrete actions. Addressing just one or two would compound a regional tragedy that hasn’t – and won’t – stay offshore.
In the political sphere, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who has been backed by the United States, Canada, and Europe, on Feb. 7 received the authority to stay in his role from Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council. The council’s mandate was expiring and, just two weeks before, the United States had revoked visas for several of its members who had attempted to retain power and sideline the prime minister.
Fils-Aimé has been attempting to address security concerns by suppressing and dismantling gangs and stabilizing core government functions.
On the security front, the United Nations estimates more than 8,100 people were murdered in 2025, 20% more than in 2024. The capital’s main airport has been closed to U.S. commercial flights for more than a year. The city’s largest public hospital is shut. Many schools are closed.
Almost half of the population of 12 million depends on humanitarian assistance. Médecins Sans Frontières reports that admissions to its sexual violence clinics have tripled since 2021, driven by systematic rape used as a tool of gang control. Haiti is regularly cited as one of the “worst places in the world to be a woman.”
The international response, led by the United States, has been uneven. In late 2025, the United Nations approved a new Gang Suppression Task Force, a 5,500-member security mission to replace a previous Kenyan-led force. The U.N. has said that the task force is “on track” to begin work in April, but funding and troop contributions remain a work in progress, as does the life support and logistics framework to support the deployment.
These problems have triggered migration, both within and outside the country. More than 1.4 million Haitians have been displaced because of the violence, according to the U.N. International Organization for Migration.
The United States and countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, especially the Dominican Republic, experience this firsthand. In fact, many of the estimated 330,000 Haitians now in the United States didn’t come directly from Haiti but transited from other Caribbean and South American countries after waves of displacement.
The United States had given some Haitians already resident in the U.S. permission to live and work legally in United States through a legal classification known as Temporary Protected Status, officially granted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to some foreign nationals already in America whose home countries are determined by the U.S. to be unsafe due to conflict, natural disasters and other security conditions. However, the U.S. administration announced February 3 that it was ending the program for Haitians, despite the dire conditions on the ground in Haiti. A legal challenge has delayed implementation, and a court ruling is pending, but ending the status would compound instability inside Haiti, which cannot possibly reintegrate the hundreds of thousands who would be forced to leave the United States.
The removal of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in the United States would also cut off a critical economic lifeline to Haiti, in addition to the estimated contribution to the U.S. economy by Haitian TPS recipients of $5.9 billion each year, and $805 million in annual federal and payroll taxes. These remittances support families, stabilize communities, and fill gaps the state cannot. Removing that funding source would accelerate migration, not solve it.
Fixing Haiti’s problems is difficult because military force, slogans, and single-track solutions won’t work. Instead, they require a coordinated approach that recognizes the link between governance, security, economic survival, and human movement.
Engagement must reinforce Haitian sovereignty. The United States should continue to support local leadership and its political legitimacy to strengthen the Haitian government and its capacity by backing credible transitional governance, protecting electoral timelines, and supporting (and funding) community-based solutions that Haitians recognize as their own.
The international community must also work to quickly strengthen the security mission while building the Haitian police force’s ability to maintain order over time. The Gang Suppression Task Force urgently needs predictable funding, sustainable logistics, and multilateral responsibility. Countries must identify and sanction gang leaders and their financiers and political enablers. Partners should prioritize incremental security gains, such as restoring freedom of movement for aid delivery, work, school, and worship, to build citizens’ confidence.
Haiti also faces one of the worst hunger crises in its history, so expediting and enabling humanitarian assistance is critical. Securing supply lines for food, water, fuel, and medical care must be an imperative, providing the groundwork for all other societal gains. This requires coordinated multilateral action, including public-private partnerships.
To truly emerge from this crisis, Haiti must begin to build long-term and sustainable economic stability. This includes restoring the rule of law to root out corruption and creating jobs to keep desperate people out of gangs.
Returning large numbers of people to a country in freefall would worsen instability, remove a source of societal support and intensify regional migration pressures, so the United States should also maintain temporary protected status for Haitians. It’s not a permanent solution but should be regarded as a stabilizing tool that buys time for political and security progress to take hold.
Haiti’s crises are interconnected. U.S. policy needs to be as well.
