Sentinel and Tim Tebow Foundation rescue children from Haiti
The combined efforts of the Sentinel Foundation and the Tim Tebow Foundation, with the guidance and assistance of Representative Corey Mills, R-Fla., rescued 59 disabled children from Haiti via Jamaica. (Courtesy of Sentinel Foundation)
- The Biden administration has deported about 50 Haitians back to Haiti, the first such deportation flight in several months.
- The Department of Homeland Security reiterated its commitment to enforcing US laws regarding immigration.
- Haiti has seen a mass exodus from its capital due to increasing gang violence, overwhelming authorities, and significant displacement.
Biden administration About 50 Haitians were deported back to their country on Thursday, officials said, the first deportation flight in several months for the Caribbean nation grappling with rising gang violence.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it would “continue to enforce U.S. laws and policy in the Florida Straits and throughout the region.” Caribbean region, as well as on the southwest border. The U.S. policy is to return noncitizens who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States.”
Officials did not provide details of the flight or how many deported Haitians were on board.
Gangs’ battle for control of Haiti poses major threats to US national security
Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data, said one plane departed from Alexandria, Louisiana, a hub for deportation operations, and arrived in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, after a stop in Miami.
The logo of the Department of Homeland Security is seen during a news conference in Washington on February 25, 2015. The Biden administration deported about 50 Haitians back to their country on Thursday, officials said, the first deportation flight to the Caribbean nation in several months. Are struggling with increasing gang violence. (AP Photo/Pablo Martínez Monsivais, File)
Marjorie Dorsaninville, a U.S. citizen, said her Haitian fiancé, Gerson Joseph, left Miami airport crying Thursday morning to say he was being deported on a flight to Cap-Haitian along with other Haitians and some people from other countries, including the Bahamas .
He had promised to call when he arrived, but he did not do so until the evening.
Joseph has lived in the US for more than 20 years and has a 7-year-old US citizen daughter from another woman. He had a deportation order since 2005 after losing an asylum bid, which his lawyer Philip Issa said was the result of poor legal representation at the time. Although Joseph had not previously been deported, his lawyer was seeking to overturn that order.
Haiti waits for Kenyan police mission to fight gangs, amid fears they won’t come
Joseph was convicted of theft and burglary and ordered to pay $270 in restitution, Issa said. He has been detained since last year.
Dorsaninville said her fiancé has “nobody” in Haiti. “It’s devastating to me. We were planning a wedding and now he’s gone,” she said.
More than 33,000 people fled Haiti’s capital in less than two weeks as gangs looted homes and attacked state institutions, according to a report last month from the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration. Most of the displaced traveled to Haiti’s southern region, which is generally peaceful compared to Port-au-Prince, which has an estimated population of 3 million and is largely affected by gang violence.
Haiti’s national police is understaffed and overwhelmed by gangs with powerful arsenals. Many hospitals ceased operations due to lack of medical supplies.
According to Witness at the Border, the US operated one deportation flight per month to Haiti from December 2022 until last January. It said deportation flights were frequent after a camp of 16,000 largely Haitian migrants gathered on the riverbank of Del Rio, Texas, in September 2021, but became rare as fewer Haitians crossed the border illegally from Mexico. of.
Haitians were arrested crossing the border from Mexico 286 times during the first three months of the year, less than 0.1% of the more than 400,000 arrests among all nationalities. More than 150,000 people have entered the U.S. legally through January 2023 under the president’s powers to grant entry for humanitarian reasons, and many more have entered the U.S. legally using an online appointment system at land crossings with Mexico called CBP One. Have come from.
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Homeland Security said Thursday it was “monitoring the situation” in Haiti. US Coast Guard Sixty-five Haitians detained at sea off the Bahamas coast last month were repatriated.
The Haitian Bridge Alliance, a migrant advocacy group, urged a halt to deportation flights to Haiti, saying on Thursday that the US is “knowingly condemning the most vulnerable people who came to us in their time of need to imminent danger.”
With Republicans raising the issue in an election year, the Biden administration has emphasized enforcement, particularly through an unsuccessful effort to legislate after record-high border arrests in December. Arrests for illegal crossings halved in January and have remained fairly steady since Mexico stepped up enforcement south of the U.S. border. Biden says he is considering executive action to halt asylum at the border at a time when illegal immigration reaches certain thresholds.
