HAFFD calls on the Fils-Aimé government to explain a $780,000 lobbying contract with a convicted felon and champion of mass deportation, signed weeks after 330,000 Haitians lost TPS
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The Haitian American Foundation for Democracy (HAFFD) today called on the Government of Haiti to explain why its Ministry of Foreign Affairs has hired Roger Stone — the Trump confidant convicted of lying to Congress, a founding architect of the mass-deportation movement, and a man with a long public record of racial slurs against Black Americans — to represent Haiti in Washington at $65,000 a month.
According to filings published by the US Department of Justice on September 16, Foreign Minister Raina Forbin signed a contract with Stone’s firm, Drake Ventures, LLC, on September 2, 2026. Haiti will pay $195,000 every three months, the first installment due on signature, for at least a year: $780,000. The contract renews automatically, cannot be cancelled by Haiti for twelve months, and obligates Stone to do nothing more specific than “advocate on those issues the Client deems necessary and appropriate.” It does not mention Temporary Protected Status, deportations, or the safety of a single Haitian in the United States.
“Five weeks after 350,000 Haitians lost their legal status and deportation flights to Cap-Haitien resumed, the Haitian government found $780,000 for a lobbyist — and chose the one man in Washington who helped build the movement that is deporting our people,” said Patrick Gaspard, Vice-Chairman of HAFFD. “Roger Stone has never spoken a word in defense of a Haitian migrant. Haitians at home and in the diaspora deserve to know whether he is being paid to undo this policy or to make it easier.”
The contract’s terms are as troubling as its choice of contractor. Haiti must pay Stone’s legal fees if he is drawn into any investigation or audit arising from the work. His liability to Haiti is capped at the fees Haiti has paid him. And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of a sovereign nation has agreed to be sued, if at all, only in the courts of Broward County, Florida.
Stone’s record is public and extensive. He was convicted in 2019 on seven felony counts, including lying to Congress and witness tampering, before President Trump commuted his sentence. He was dropped by CNN and MSNBC in 2016 and permanently suspended by Twitter in 2017 over posts calling Black commentators “stupid negro,” “house negro,” “Mandingo” and “Uncle Tom.” In July 2020, on a Los Angeles radio broadcast, he was recorded describing the Black host interviewing him as “this Negro.”
Haiti already pays Continental Strategy, the firm of former Trump ambassador Carlos Trujillo, $35,000 a month on behalf of the Prime Minister’s office. With the Stone contract, the Republic is now paying at least $100,000 a month to two Trump-aligned lobbying firms while the Haitian state cannot pay its police, its teachers, or its hospitals.
HAFFD has written to Minister Forbin and Prime Minister Fils-Aimé asking the government to answer six questions: what Stone has been hired to do; why the contract ignores TPS and deportations; why the Ministry chose a promoter of the policies harming Haitians; whether it examined his record; whether the Cour Supérieure des Comptes reviewed the contract; and why Haiti accepted terms no competent lawyer would let a sovereign sign. The Foundation has requested answers within fifteen days and will make any response public.
“This is not a question of politics. It is a question of whom the Haitian state represents,” said Jocelyn McCalla, HAFFD’s Executive Director. “If the government has a case for this contract, let it make that case to the Haitian people. If it does not, it should cancel it.”
HAFFD will share the contract and the government’s response with members of Congress and will monitor Stone’s semi-annual disclosures to the Department of Justice, which must list every US official he contacts on Haiti’s behalf and every payment he receives.
The DOJ filing, including the full contract, is available at:
https://efile.fara.gov/docs/7742-Exhibit-AB-20260916-2.pdf
The Haitian American Foundation for Democracy is a 501(c)(3) organization that calls on Haitian-Americans to engage fully in US democracy and to promote democracy in Haiti.
Featured image: Aerial view of Pétion-Ville, Haiti. Photo by Reynaldo Mirault/Unsplash.
