Kaine, Colleagues Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Address Corruption and Violence in Haiti

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) and the Ranking Member of the SFRC Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, and Senate colleagues introduced bipartisan legislation to require the U.S. State Department to investigate and report on the relationship between criminal gangs and political and economic conditions in Haiti. The Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act would promote the rule of law and hold gang leaders and those who enable them accountable for violence in the region.

“The widespread violence perpetrated by criminal gangs in Haiti has internally displaced over one million Haitians and created a dire humanitarian crisis,” Kaine said. “This bill would help address the deteriorating conditions in Haiti by sanctioning Haitian gangs and other individuals with ties to them, and require a comprehensive analysis regarding how this crisis impacts our security and the stability of the region.”

Specifically, the Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act would:

• Mandate sanctions against Haitian gangs and political and economic elites;
• Require extensive interagency reporting on the scale and nature of criminal collusion in Haiti, including identification of the most prominent gangs in Haiti and political and economic elites with direct and significant ties to criminal gangs; and
• Require an assessment of threats to U.S. national interests, democratic governance in the country, and the provision of assistance to the Haitian government caused by criminal collusion between gangs and elites.

The introduction was led by U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL). In addition to Kaine, the bill is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), John Curtis (R-UT), and Chris Coons (D-DE).

Full text of the legislation is available here.

###