Haitians flock for passports to reach US under new program

Haitians seeking to escape from poverty and despair are flocking to government offices hoping to get a passport and perhaps their ticket to life in America under a new US immigration program.

At the main migration office in Port-au-Prince, the crowd is so big that security officers keep the metal gates closed and only let people in one by one.

Under the new policy announced by President Joe Biden, the United States will accept 30,000 people per month from Haiti and a handful of other countries mired in crisis -- Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela -- but on condition they stay away from the overcrowded US border with Mexico and arrive by plane.

To qualify for this program, candidates must also have a sponsor in the US who can show sufficient income to support them.

In the halls of the migration office in the Haitian capital, people seeking a way out line up and wait their turn.

People applying for a passport in Haiti must buy a stamp that costs the equivalent of about $50 -- a fortune in the poorest country in the Americas.

But the application process is painfully slow and riddled with corruption, so people eager to get a passport more quickly often pay twice the standard fee to specialised agencies to cut through all the red tape.

And the fee has been rising as demand for passports skyrockets.

Haiti has trudged through year after year of political crisis and, stunningly, right now there are no elected officials in power. Nor are elections scheduled.