A Haitian woman who moved to Chile nearly a decade ago was finally reunited with her daughter through a local visa program that highlighted both the escalating conflict in the Caribbean and sharpening tensions over migration as Chile's presidential election season ramps up. - REUTERS
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00:00Haitian migrant Krista Belus and her 13-year-old daughter Lawanda are finally reunited in Chile
00:07after nearly a decade apart. Belus fled Haiti in 2016 as deadly armed gangs in Port-au-Prince
00:14made life increasingly untenable. She reluctantly left her then three-year-old daughter with family
00:21after her dad pushed her to move for a better life. Lawanda arrived in Chile earlier this year
00:27through the country's Family Reunification Visa program that launched in late 2022. The program
00:34highlights both the escalating conflict in the Caribbean and sharpening tensions over migration
00:39as Chile's presidential election season ramps up. There is no security in Haiti right now.
00:47I brought my daughter here because of the insecurity.
00:51That is my country, but I cannot let my daughter live through that. My mother could call me and say,
00:59Krista, something bad has happened to your daughter. Do you understand?
01:04In Haiti, they kill people, kidnap them, kill children, rape girls.
01:09Since its launch, Chile's Family Reunification Visa program has allowed some 15,000 Haitians to enter
01:22the country, including 3,000 just this year. The visas are contingent on the person requesting
01:29reunification, having definitive residency, a stable job, no criminal record, and contributing to local
01:36taxes. Haitians represent a small fraction of Chile's population, but they have become a political
01:42flashpoint ahead of November's general elections.
01:48Michelle Ange Joseph, a Haitian migrant community leader in Santiago, says an anti-Haitian campaign
01:55is circulating not only in Chile, but also in the Dominican Republic and the United States.
02:02Both nations have been deporting Haitians, in spite of repeated pleas from the United Nations not to do
02:08so, because of the humanitarian conditions in Haiti. Belouc's seven siblings have all left Haiti,
02:14most of them for the U.S.