Ron DeSantis has threatened to send Haitian migrants to leafy Democrat enclaves in the north as gang warfare engulfs the embattled Caribbean nation.
The Florida governor said refugees arriving in his state would go the same way as the thousands of migrants he has already bussed to Democrat strongholds such as Sacramento and Martha’s Vineyard.
Attacks spread to upscale neighborhoods in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on Monday leaving at least a dozen people dead on Monday as cop turned gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier attempts to seize power with his thousands of heavily-armed followers.
But DeSantis has already dispatched more than 100 police officers and state guards to coastal areas to sweep up any new arrivals escaping the violence.
‘We do have our transport program also that’s going to be operational,’ he told podcaster Dana Loesch on Tuesday.
‘Haitians land in the Florida Keys, their next stop very well may be Martha’s Vineyard.’
Gang leader Ezechielle Alexandre was out mustering support and demanding residents of the Carrefour Feuilles district recapture it from rival gangs
A resident checks to see if he knows one of the hundreds of dead now littering the streets
Burnt out cars are now littering the streets of even the relatively prosperous suburbs
El Patriota, a news website in the neighboring Dominican Republic, posted graphic footage of a man having his throat cut with a machete on Tuesday before his body was dragged through the street from the back of a motorbike.
Nearly 1.5 million Haitians are on the brink of famine according to aid groups and much of the capital remains without power after Monday’s attacks on five of its power stations left them ‘completely dysfunctional’.
Barbecue, a former police officer turned gangmaster has claimed responsibility for the latest surge in attacks, and said his goal is to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers and prevent Henry’s return to the Caribbean nation.
Barbecue’s threats will have struck fear into the hearts of many Haitians, with his reputation for burning people alive – something he has long denied – preceding him.
He has promised a revolution and his gangs has said his goal is to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers.
He is thought to be behind Monday’s attacks in the relatively affluent Petionville neighborhood which awoke to more than a dozen bodies lying in its streets.
‘Two young boys suddenly appeared and opened fire,’ resident Exilien Dagene told Al Jazera.
‘They didn’t address anyone, they just came up and started shooting.
Gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier has pledged to seize control of the Caribbean island
Violence escalated on March 11 and has left the police struggling for control
A woman in the capital weeps as the bodies of people she knew are taken from the streets
Alexandre’s call to arms found ready backers in the beleaguered Carrefour Feuilles district
Hundreds followed the gang leader as he marched unchallenged through the community
‘We woke up this morning with bodies in our community.’
‘We will start working to remove those bodies before the children start walking by to go to school and the vendors start to arrive,’ said Douce Titi from the Mayor’s office.
Gunmen also looted homes in the communities of Laboule and Thomassin before sunrise, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police.
The violence has escalated since Prime Minister Ariel Henry was forced from office last week amid fury at his announcement of yet another delay to long-postponed elections.
Around 80 per cent of Port-au-Prince was already in the hands of armed gangs before Henry was swept from power, fleeing to neighboring Puerto Rico from where he is trying to broker agreement on a transitional government among Haiti’s powerful elites.
Meanwhile the gangs have extended their control over the city, shutting its port and airport as they battle for power.
Barbecue’s rival gang lord Ezechielle Alexandre mounted a show of force in the ravaged Carrefour Feuilles district of the capital on Tuesday, appearing with hundreds of his supporters.
Mountains of rubbish and burned out cars line the streets of the neighborhood which is patrolled by bands of heavily armed men.
Former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe warned on Tuesday there is a ‘huge security void and breakdown’ in Haiti.
He said the country had a strong military and police force until Jean-Bertrand Aristide became president and then he disbanded them out of a lack of trust, which has created the void in security the country is seeing now.
And he claimed Haiti is the only country in the Western Hemisphere outside of Costa Rica that has no military and that has the biggest gang activity after El Salvador.
‘That created a void. And that created a situation where we have to deal with that void is filled by gangs,’ Lamothe said.
‘Haiti is probably the only country in the world where gangs on Facebook every day doing Facebook Live.’
Twenty-five Haitians, including five children were caught in a boat complete with firearms, night vision gear and drugs off the coast of Florida by the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission earlier this month.
Former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe has called for law and order to be restored on the island
Thousands have been killed in the violence and nearly 1.5 million are at risk of famine
And DeSantis insisted none would be accepted as legal migrants.
‘Look, Dana, I’ve got to defend my state,’ he said.
‘I’ve got enough issues just dealing with people fleeing from blue states moving into Florida.’
In total, more than 350,000 people have been internally displaced in Haiti and over 15,000 of them in the last two weeks, reported the BBC.
On Mondays and Fridays, the Dominican Republic opens its border to Haitians who want to shop at the food market located at the end of the border bridge.
However, the Dominican government has been deporting troves of Haitians who try to overstay their welcome and advised Haitians not to seek refuge in their territory of Hispaniola.