Haitian-American immigrant Markenzy Lapointe, the Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, personifies the immigrant American Dream story.
Just days after Trump spewed vile conspiracies about Haitian migrants during his debate debacle with Vice President Kamala Harris, Lapointe was thrust into the spotlight after taking charge of the prosecution of Ryan Routh, who is suspected of attempting to assassinate the former president at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Here is Lapointe describing the charges against Routh at a news conference on Monday. So far Routh has been charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person — convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He was ordered held in pre-trial detention as the FBI continues its investigation.
Trump has said that immigrants from Haiti and other countries are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Adolf Hitler used the term “blood poisoning” when he criticized immigration in his manifesto “Mein Kampf.”
But if anyone is spreading poisonous venom in the country, it is Trump and his MAGA cultists with their anti-immigrant hate speech.
So it is quite ironic that the federal prosecutor handling the investigation into a suspected assassination attempt against Trump by a middle-aged white male is a Haitian-American who came to the U.S. as a teenager.
Lapointe is not only the first Black lawyer to hold the position of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, but also the first Haitian-American ever to serve as a U.S. Attorney in any of the 94 federal districts.
And his appointment wouldn’t have been possible without President Joe Biden’s commitment to diversify the federal judiciary, not only by his nominations of federal judges but also by ensuring that U.S. attorneys come from diverse backgrounds, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. In his first year in office, Biden nominated 37 people to the office of U.S. Attorney around the country, 20 of whom were Black and 13 were women.
By contrast, over 85% of Trump’s appointments to the office of U.S. Attorney were white males, even though white men constitute less than 1/3 of the nation’s population, according to the Hispanic National Bar Association.
Biden appointed Lapointe to the post of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in September 2022. After his December 2022 Senate confirmation by a bipartisan voice vote, Lapointe took up the post as the top federal prosecutor for Southern Florida in January 2023.
“One of the things you realize being the first of anything, first Haitian-American, first Black U.S. attorney, is there's a tremendous responsibility that comes with that. Part of that is recognizing it means a whole lot more than you thought it would because there’s an entire community who may have felt outside of the process, outside of the mix,” Lapointe told South Florida’s NBC 6 in February 2023.
“And now they see you and they feel, ‘Oh. Finally now there's somebody who's from my neck of the woods who is there.’”
Just consider the obstacles and hardships Lapointe had to overcome to reach his position. NBC 6 wrote:
He uses words like “surreal” and “suspended reality,” but most often "blessed" when reflecting on his journey from a 16-year-old Haitian kid who did not know English sharing a two-bedroom Liberty City apartment with a single mom and four siblings to the top of federal law enforcement in South Florida.
And he told the television station that he considers his mother to be his “superhero.”
“For somebody who did not have an education, she clearly understood being part of this required her to work, required her to take care of her children on her own, making about $16,000 a year,” he recalled. “So to this day, I think she’s not just my hero, my superhero.”
The Miami Herald wrote this about Lapointe’s background after Biden announced his appointment in 2022:
He grew up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where his mother worked as a street vendor and his father as a tailor. He came to Miami as a 16-year-old to live with his mother and other siblings in Liberty City, during the racially turbulent 1980s. His mom worked as a cleaning lady at Stefano’s restaurant on upscale Key Biscayne, but his dad was absent from the home.
The temptation of the drug trade was right outside his front door. “A lot of folks around me made those choices, but they were never mine,” said Lapointe, who worked as a cab driver and at a bar at the same Key Biscayne restaurant where his mom worked. He graduated from Miami Edison Senior High School in 1987, and joined the U.S. Marines as a reservist while attending Miami-Dade College for a couple of years. In 1990, he transferred to Florida State University. But Lapointe, still not a U.S. citizen at the time, had to put school on hold when he was called up as a reservist by the Marines after Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Persian Gulf War erupted.
“I was there for six months,” said Lapointe, who missed his first year at FSU while serving a tour of duty in Iraq. “Going to war representing the United States was particularly meaningful to me,” Lapointe, who left the Marines as a corporal after serving six years as a reservist, told the Herald in an interview earlier this year. “It mattered to me as an immigrant who came here and could contribute to this country in a special way.”
Lapointe was still not a U.S. citizen at the time he served in Iraq. “Cadet Bone Spurs” Trump received multiple draft deferments during the Vietnam War, and none of his children ever served in the military. Trump considers military service to be for “suckers” and “losers.”
Lapointe graduated from Florida State University in 1993 with a B.S. degree in finance, and became a U.S. citizen two years later. In 1999, he graduated from FSU’s law school, and then worked as a law clerk for a Florida Supreme Court justice.
He then joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami in 2002, where he remained until 2006.
The Miami Herald wrote:
In an Attorney at Law profile, Lapointe said that as a prosecutor he learned the critical importance of fairness in pursuing justice. “As a prosecutor, there is no better compliment than being fair because you have tremendous discretion and enormous power, and showing the appropriate responsibility in exercising that power is essential,” Lapointe said.
He then became a successful attorney and partner at two prestigious law firms in Miami. He also was awarded for his pro bono work in the community, including a case in which he helped reunite an infant rescued from the rubble of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and flown to Miami for treatment with her parents. Thanks to his efforts, the family was allowed to remain in the United States.
Nadeon Gedeon, president of the Haitian Lawyers Association, interviewed by the South Florida Times in December 2022, praised Lapointe for his service “through extensive pro bono legal work, mentorship and active community involvement.”
"A naturalized citizen himself, Mr. Lapointe passionately assists in legal clinics aimed at providing information and helping eligible persons complete applications for United States Citizenship and Temporary Protected Status. With a heart to help the youth in inner-cities, Mr. Lapointe … remains a constant voice and necessary presence in our community.”
Until the Trump case, the most prominent case he handled was against the alleged assassins of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in July 2021. It led to a grand jury indictment against 11 people and the arrest of four Florida residents allegedly involved in the scheme.
In February 2024, Lapointe released this Public Service Announcement about how to report hate crimes.
Lapointe said:
“Hate crimes tear us apart. That’s why the United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida alongside the FBI and all other law enforcement partners stand united to protect and serve every community. If you commit a hate crime, we will charge you federally and hold you accountable in a court of law. … Together we can build a world free of hate crimes.”
Hint. If you want to build a world free of hate crimes, one place to start might be at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and resort in Palm Beach, which is under the jurisdiction of the Southern District of Florida,
Lawrence O’Donnell in the opening of his MSNBC show on Monday night noted the historical twist that the federal prosecutor in charge of investigating a possible attempted assassination of Trump is an immigrant from Haiti. (O’Donnell’s remarks about Lapointe begin at the 6-minute mark)
O’Donnell emphasized just how high the stakes are in the upcoming election for the American judicial system.
“These are the days to remember that there’s one political party in America that wants to defund the police, and the police that they want to defund are FBI agents and other federal agents. … If Republican win the White House and if they win the U.S. Senate, they will replace Markenzy Lapointe and every Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney throughout the country with a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney. …
“Republican control of the Senate would guarantee that Donald Trump could appoint anyone he wants to anything. At stake in the election and especially in the Senate election is the future of the American court system. Markenzy Lapointe is the first Haitian-American U.S. Attorney in U.S. history. There won’t be another one in a Trump administration.”
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