The US Department of Homeland Security announced the week of May 16 that it was extending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians for another 18 months, until Jan. 22, 2013. TPS is a program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay in the US because of temporary conditions in their homelands that would prevent them from returning safely, such as a natural catastrophe. TPS was first granted to Haitians living in the US without documents in January 2010 following an earthquake that devastated much of southern Haiti. (Haïti Libre, Haiti, May 17; Homeland Security announcement, May 19)

Armed with machetes and knives, Haitian national police and local officials destroyed some 200 tents in a homeless camp on a public space in the Delmas 3 neighborhood northeast of downtown Port-au-Prince the morning of May 23. Camp residents, who were living there because they lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in January 2010, ran for cover or protested the action while their temporary shelters were demolished. Wilson Jeudy, the mayor of Delmas, a subsection of the capital, claimed that the operation's target was not the earthquake victims but criminal gangs he said had been using the camp.

Popular Haitian singer Michel Martelly ("Sweet Micky") was sworn in as his country's 56th president on the morning of May 14 in a ceremony attended by outgoing president René Préval, members of Parliament and a group of foreign dignitaries, including Dominican Leonel Fernández, Honduran president Porfirio Lobo, Surinamese president Desiré Bouterse and former US president Bill Clinton. The event was held in a temporary structure set up in downtown Port-au-Prince for the Parliament after a January 2010 earthquake destroyed much of the capital. The actual administration of the oath of office took place without electric lights or a working sound system because of a brief power outage in the building. (AlterPresse, Haiti, May 14; Radio Kiskeya, Haiti, May 14; Radio Métropole, Haiti, May 14)

As of May 12 a group of Haitians left homeless by a massive January 2010 earthquake were facing possible expulsion from their displaced persons' camp at the Palais de l'Art, in Delmas 33 in the northeast of Port-au-Prince. A lawyer for the property's owner said he was asking the Interior Ministry to remove the camp residents within eight days. The residents reported that the owner had already started harassing them: on May 9 they found the doors to the toilets locked, and on May 10 the front gate was locked, trapping them in the camp. More than 150 families have been living at the site, according to the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).

Following up on earlier efforts to highlight human rights abuses in Puerto Rico, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hosted a high-publicity fact-finding delegation in San Juan on May 2 and 3. The group, which included ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero, political scientist Angelo Falcón, actress/choreographer Rosie Perez and recently retired baseball player Carlos Delgado, interviewed University of Puerto Rico (UPR) students, UPR rector Ana Guadalupe, union leaders, journalists, police chief José Figueroa Sancha and others.

On May 3 a panel of four experts presented United Nations (UN) secretary general Ban Ki-moon with their report on the origin of the cholera epidemic that broke out in Haiti last October. As of April 21 the disease had caused 4,575 deaths, according to the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP). Almost 300,000 people have contracted cholera, and the number is expected to rise as the rainy season starts.

Far-right Cuban activist Orlando Bosch died in Miami on April 27 at the age of 84. He had "a long and painful illness," according to a statement by fellow right-winger Pedro Corzo. Although accused of involvement in a number of terrorist actions targeting Cuba's leftist government, Bosch was only convicted of one: a Sept. 16, 1968 rifle attack on a Polish freighter docked at the Port of Miami. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but fled the US after getting parole. In 1976 Venezuelan prosecutors charged Bosch and longtime US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset Luis Posada Carriles in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana de Aviación jetliner; 73 people died in that attack. A Venezuelan military court acquitted Bosch and Posada in 1980, but they remained in prison pending a prosecution appeal to a civilian court. Posada escaped in 1985 and went on to work in US operations to supply the right-wing contra rebels in Nicaragua. The Venezuelan civilian court acquitted Bosch in 1987.

As of April 30 the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Organization of American States (OAS) and the US were all pressuring Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to change 18 questionable decisions in the March 20 runoff races for Parliament. On April 20 the CEP announced final results for the long-delayed second round of the 2010 presidential and legislative elections. As expected, the CEP confirmed the victory of conservative presidential candidate Michel Martelly ("Sweet Micky"). However, the final results for legislative seats changed from the preliminary count in 19 cases, and critics questioned the decisions for 18 of them: 17 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and one in the Senate. All but two of the changes awarded the seats to candidates from the centrist Unity party of outgoing president René Préval. The CEP didn't offer any explanation for its decisions, which would give Unity a majority in the 99-member Chamber and a strong position relative to president-elect Martelly, since the party already had a majority in the Senate.