The New York Press Club awarded Documented’s Caribbean Community Correspondent Ralph Thomassaint Joseph in the 2025 Journalism Awards Competition for his reported piece: “Members of Elite Haiti Police Force Lost in New York as Asylum Seekers and Parolees.” Joseph’s article focused on how highly trained Haitian police officers moved to New York to seek asylum amid the force’s decline in Haiti.
“Haiti is likely one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a police officer. But all four men fled for the U.S., not because they feared death at the hands of the gangs, but rather that their lives would be lost fighting for an institution that doesn’t care if they live or die,” Joseph wrote in the in-depth feature article published last year.
Other prize-winning journalism included reports on Mayor Eric Adams’ and other City Hall officials’ corruption investigations, the 2024 U.S. Presidential Campaigns, the attempted Trump Assassination, the war in Gaza and more stories from news outlets ranging from CBS News, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York Magazine, New York Focus, and Spectrum News NY1.
It’s almost been a year since you wrote the story on members of the Haiti police force who moved to New York as asylum seekers and parolees. What has changed since then?
Oh, many things have changed. One of the police officers has been in immigration court, and while there, the judge cited my piece to question that police officer.
Haiti has become worse since then. Many police officers have been killed in the meantime in Haiti by the gangs. Also, in that piece, I mentioned there was a U.S.-backed Kenya-led police force in Haiti to fight the gangs. The mission, at that time, was on its first deployment. But since then, many Kenyan officers have arrived in Haiti. Officers from other Caribbean countries have also arrived in Haiti to fight the gangs alongside the Haitian police. But many officers have been killed. Many have left the institutions.
What do you think are three major takeaways that readers should know from this piece that you wrote or about what’s happening now that are important for people to be aware of?
The original idea was to write a big story about the Haitian brain drain — about how many professionals and educated people were leaving Haiti. As part of the story, the police officers in the special forces would feature in it because these are people who have been trained by U.S., French, Canadian and Israeli special forces to fight the gangs. They know their craft very well. But they end up in the United States cooking food, working as security guards at airports, working sometimes as taxi drivers, Uber delivery workers — you name it — all the types of jobs you see immigrants doing here.
But the thing is, here in the United States, when people see immigrants, they don’t see a story. But the story reveals another aspect of the immigrant journey into the U.S. In my story, it was clear that it was not their full will to leave their country. They were forced to leave. And even now, they’re still willing to go back to their country to do their jobs, and they’re not really comfortable with the life they’re having here. They say that back in their countries, they were someone. In Haiti, people call them chief, like they’re the chief. But here they’re just a number. They are just the security guard, the cook in the kitchen, the taxi driver, Uber driver, but they don’t have the full respect that comes with the rank they held back in their country.
So the thing I think people can take away from this story is to understand, especially with how the Trump administration is cracking down on immigrants, especially Haitian immigrants, there’s a real problem back in Haiti. There are many people who left Haiti, not because they want to enjoy or they’re enjoying the American dream. It’s because there is a real situation forcing people to leave their country, to leave their neighborhoods, and the gangs have contributed a lot to this. The gangs can be so powerful because of the loose gun regulations in the United States and this is really important.
Congratulations again, Ralph! More eyes on your work. How does it feel to be a winner?
It’s great. I’m happy to win a prize in journalism because it’s proof that my work is worth something, especially since I’ve been working here in New York. I have been questioning the impact and the value of what I am doing. It’s nice to win a prize, but at the same time, it’s, can I say, a burden? It’s another responsibility because you have more focus on you. People have high expectations, and you must always deliver according to those expectations. It’s a kind of balanced feeling. It’s happiness plus the sense of responsibility because this kind of prize, this is the thing they bring with them. They tell you, listen, we think that you’re good, so you better keep it up at that level. So anytime you fail, any small mistake becomes a big thing.
