Supposedly "fleeing poverty".

Haiti is a highly interesting case.

Once called "La Perle des Antilles", "The Jewel of the Antilles" was the most prosperous Latin American country, when it was called St.Domingue and run by the French. In fact it was the richest colony in the entire world. Economists estimate that in the 1750s Haiti provided as much as 50% of the Gross National Product of France (Webster).

Of course, this was partly due to the French having the bad idea to import 400 000 black slaves to their plantations, some 250 years ago.

Came the French revolution of 1789, declaring that all men are equal and liberating the blacks. Who - not waisting much time - cut the throats of the French (and of each other) and the new black dictator Jean-Jacques Dessalines, proudly declared in 1804 the French colony St. Domingue the independent state of "Haiti", the first black-governed state.

In 1804 is when the interesting part of Haitian history starts: The blacks are free to take the wealth of the island (remember: close to 50% of the Gross National Product of a big European contry!) for themselves, no need to give it to the nasty slaveowners.

After cutting the throat of the French, the blacks inherited a rich infrastructure and could have continued to exploit their wealthy tropical island or a least maintaining a normal third world country like neighboring Spanish Santo Domingo. Instead they let the French infrastructure decay and turned Haiti into the shithole they are fleeing from today and which the US will be tomorrow.