When it was announced that Brazil would host the 2016 Olympics, thousands of foreign workers flooded the country to work on the construction

projects for the venues on the 5-year to 7-year period leading up to the event.  The projects took years to complete, and many of the foreign workers acquired Brazilian work permits or other types of legal status, but that status was temporary in many cases. As the Olympic Games approached and the projects were being completed, fewer and fewer of those workers were needed in Brazil, so they departed that country as their legal status expired or was not renewed. In the cases of thousands of the foreign workers who did not want to return to their countries of origin, staying in South America was another option. Branching out to countries in the South American continent, and then to Central American countries, they began living their lives in those locations throughout 2015 to 2017, acquired legal status, did not acquire legal status, learned the languages there or did not learn the languages there, some of them married and/or had children (either sired or gave birth), assimilated or did not assimilate, etc. Some people lived in several different countries along these routes. Some people planned to eventually end up on the US, or Canada, or other countries beyond South or Central America. 

  A natural consequence of all this was that in 2018 and 2019 as the Honduran, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan “immigrant caravans” began their trek northward through Mexico with plans to enter the US, a large number of Haitians joined them. The fact that many of the Haitians had been in South and Central America for years on end, lots of them had learned Portuguese and/or Spanish and/or other regional languages and dialects spoken along their routes of travel. When the people in the caravans were met with the temporary Stay In Mexico Program to await their chances to present their cases to US immigration authorities, some of them applied for asylum in Mexico, which was granted in some cases. Establishing themselves in Mexico by find a place to live, working, going to school, marrying, having children, etc., they settled into life there. 

  In July of 2021, Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, throwing an already precarious country into chaos. In both August and September of 2021, earthquakes occurred in Haiti. Haitians massed at the northern border of Mexico and crossed northward into the US in groups of hundreds. 

  The purpose for me posting this brief and abridged history lesson is that on a couple of other strings of this website over the past few days, there are some rumors, assumptions, arguments, accusations, falsehoods, outrageous statements, opinions being written that may or may not arise from informed positions. I have absolutely no desire to join those conversations because I do not want endless notifications every time a new post is made there, it’s to too adversarial for my tastes. There is a possibility that one or more of the participants may read what I have written here and hopefully will develop a better understanding or appreciation of facts regarding the issue. As such, I have made the attempt to stick with bare facts, not my opinion. By providing the background that I have not seen hashed out in the fray, perhaps a couple of people can take a step back and realize that a limited knowledge of a subject can lead to misconstruing it in ways that lead to unnecessary fighting.

  I am neither an expert on this subject nor the most informed person around. I do not claim to be. 

~