Amidst rising gang violence in Haiti, the U.S. government resumed deportations to the troubled Caribbean nation Thursday, sending around 50 Haitian nationals back to their homeland. The enforcement action ended a months-long hiatus of such flights, as confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security. "The Homeland Security Department said in a statement that it 'will continue to enforce U.S. laws and policy throughout the Florida Straits and the Caribbean region, as well as at the southwest border. U.S. policy is to return noncitizens who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States,'" as reported by CBS News Miami.
It was disclosed by Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that monitors deportation activity, that a flight departed from Alexandria, Louisiana, and managed to safely make its way to land in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, following a stopover in Miami. This information comes from advocacy's tracking of such incidents. Witness at the Border has been closely tracking deportation flights and their implications for months, indicating a downward trend that has only recently been reversed with this latest action.
Some of those returned to Haiti may face a dire situation. In a Associated Press interview, Marjorie Dorsaninvil, a U.S. citizen, said her Haitian fiancé, Gerson Joseph, called her from the Miami airport in tears, revealing he was to be deported. Notably, Joseph had been living in the U.S. for more than two decades and has a child in the country. Furthermore, he had a previous deportation order that was contested due to what his attorney described as inadequate legal representation.
The backdrop for these deportations is one rife with conflict within Haiti itself. CBS News Miami notes that "More than 33,000 people fled Haiti's capital in a span of less than two weeks as gangs pillaged homes and attacked state institutions," citing a report from the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration. Haitian law enforcement has been overwhelmed in the battle against heavily armed gangs, exacerbating the crisis and raising concerns about the fate of those deported.
In political circles, the issue of deportations has been met with a call for a pause, especially from groups like the Haitian Bridge Alliance, which, according to CBS News Miami, asserted that the U.S. was "knowingly condemning the most vulnerable, who came to us in their time of need, to imminent danger." This stance clashes with the Biden administration's renewed enforcement measures amid an election year filled with intense scrutiny of immigration policies and practices.
