PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 11, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Haitians seeking to escape from poverty and despair are flocking to government offices hoping to get a passport and perhaps their ticket to life in America under a new US immigration program.

At the main migration office in Port-au-Prince, the crowd is so big that security officers keep the metal gates closed and only let people in one by one.

Under the new policy announced by President Joe Biden, the United States will accept 30,000 people per month from Haiti and a handful of other countries mired in crisis -- Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela -- but on condition they stay away from the overcrowded US border with Mexico and arrive by plane.

To qualify for this program, candidates must also have a sponsor in the US who can show sufficient income to support them.

In the halls of the migration office in the Haitian capital, people seeking a way out line up and wait their turn.

"I have four sisters and 13 nieces and nephews who are US citizens. And some of them are in the army," said a woman named Magalie Chauvert, confident she will get permission to enter the US.

People applying for a passport in Haiti must buy a stamp that costs the equivalent of about $50 -- a fortune in the poorest country in the Americas.

But the application process is painfully slow and riddled with corruption, so people eager to get a passport more quickly often pay twice the standard fee to specialized agencies to cut through all the red tape.

And the fee has been rising since Monday as demand for passports skyrockets.

Haiti has trudged through year after year of political crisis and, stunningly, right now there are no elected officials in power. Nor are elections scheduled.

After the assassination of president Jovenel Moise in July 2021, powerful and well-armed street gangs have tightened their grip on the country and expanded the territory they control.

Kidnappings for ransom are everyday occurrences, especially in Port-au-Prince.

So people are desperate to get out of the country. And civil servants processing passport applications are swamped.

A young man named Pierre Eder discusses his plight as he waits for his turn at the passport window.

"I will never betray my country. I will always be Haitian," he said. "But I live in a country that does not work, that does not respect people, which assigns no value to young people."