Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Dr. Ho­race Chang, says the 37 Haitians who en­tered the coun­try il­le­gal­ly when they land­ed in Port­land on the is­land’s north-east coast in Ju­ly will con­tin­ue to re­ceive the high­est lev­el of sup­port while the le­gal process for asy­lum con­tin­ues.

Chang, who vis­it­ed with the Haitians at a fa­cil­i­ty in Robins Bay, St. Mary, said that through col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts in­volv­ing sev­er­al sup­port groups and min­istries, “we have en­sured that the wel­fare, safe­ty, and lin­guis­tic needs of these in­di­vid­u­als have been safe­guard­ed.

“Crit­i­cal­ly, their right to a hear­ing in the court of law, and to re­quest asy­lum have been guar­an­teed,” he added.

Chang said that as the le­gal process con­tin­ues “the gov­ern­ment of Ja­maica is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that the dig­ni­ty, health, wel­fare needs, and safe­ty of these in­di­vid­u­als are main­tained”.

Haiti is fac­ing a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis with mil­lions of cit­i­zens fac­ing acute hunger.

The sit­u­a­tion is com­pound­ed by in­creas­ing vi­o­lence and in­se­cu­ri­ty, forc­ing many to flee their homes or leave the coun­try, of­ten un­der un­safe con­di­tions.

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, who was ac­com­pa­nied on the vis­it by Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade, Kam­i­na John­son Smith, said that Ja­maica and Haiti have main­tained “strong, un­in­ter­rupt­ed bonds of friend­ship” for many decades, both bi­lat­er­al­ly and with­in the con­text of re­gion­al and hemi­spher­ic mech­a­nisms.

Chang said that Ja­maica has con­sis­tent­ly been in sup­port of the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Haiti, and the “trag­ic sit­u­a­tion” that is tak­ing place in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try is of great con­cern.

“It is for this rea­son that Prime Min­is­ter (An­drew) Hol­ness has been ac­tive­ly lead­ing in the re­gion­al and glob­al dis­cus­sions to­wards a long-term so­lu­tion to the cri­sis in Haiti,” he not­ed.

“Ja­maica’s ac­tions on the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stage demon­strates our com­mit­ment to guar­an­tee­ing hu­man rights of all peo­ples. Our re­la­tion­ship with Haiti, and in the case of these na­tion­als specif­i­cal­ly, is based on re­spect for these in­di­vid­u­als and their right to life, lib­er­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of per­son,” Chang added.

Last month, 29 Haitians were in­formed that they would be de­port­ed to their home­land af­ter be­ing charged with il­le­gal en­try and placed be­fore the Port­land Parish Court .

The 24 men and five women were fined J$7,000 or three days of hard labour each. The Haitians were among a group of 37 peo­ple who ar­rived at Boston Beach in Port­land on Ju­ly 10.