History
Between 1937 and 1942, a Haitian passport and Haitian citizenship could be obtained without visiting the country. About 100 Eastern European Jews used this method to escape Europe. At about this time, United States officials became aware of a 'passports for sale' racket carried out with the complicity of the Haitian government. In return for a substantial loan from a Swiss bank, 100 genuine signed passports were made available for sale in Germany, reportedly for $3,000 each.
In 2011, the launch of biometric or epassports was announced.
Read more about this topic: Haitian Passport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When the history of guilt is written, parents who refuse their children money will be right up there in the Top Ten.”
—Erma Brombeck (20th century)