Clarivel Ruiz has organized a free film screening and panel discussion geared towards junior and high schools, as part of her project Dominicans Love Haitians Movement.
She will be showing Deported, a film that follows members of a unique group of men in Haiti: criminal deportees from North America. Since 1996, the United States has implemented a policy of repatriation of all foreign residents who have been convicted of crimes. Every two weeks, about 50 Haitian nationals are deported from the United States; 40 percent are convicted legal residents who completed their jail sentence in America. To a lesser extent, Canada applies a similar policy.
Through the portraits and interviews of four deportees in Haiti and their families in North America, DEPORTED presents the tragedy of broken lives, forced separation from American children and spouses, alienation and stigmatization endured in a country they don't know and don't understand. A new life begins for these deportees in an environment that is both completely unfamiliar and quite hostile. Many no longer have family on the island and speak little, if any, Creole. Some struggle with addiction and others are coping with mental illness. Most have very limited financial means with which to manage any sort of reintegration. And Haitians are generally less than welcoming. They know that these North Americans have committed crimes and view them with suspicion.
DEPORTED, winner of Best Documentary Award at the Vues D'Afrique International Film Festival, goes far beyond the borders of Haiti and addresses the global issue of migratory policies.