Immigration officials sent dozens of Haitians back to their home country on Thursday, according to three government officials, in the first deportation flight conducted by the U.S. government after months in the country, which has been hit by widespread violence.
Deportation flights are generally seen as a way to discourage migrants from crossing the southern border without authorization. The United States is concerned about immigration from Haiti after the takeover by criminal gangs of their capital, Port-au-Prince, led to the expected resignation of the prime minister, Ariel Henry, this year.
The deportation flight, the first since January, comes as the Biden administration continues to take tougher measures at the southern border as a way to reduce the number of migrants entering the country without authorization. President Biden has faced intense scrutiny from Republicans over the border, and immigration has become a key campaign issue.
In recent months, however, migrants are crossing the border at slower rates than before.
However, Thursday’s deportation flight caught many immigrant advocacy groups by surprise. The US government itself advises Americans not to visit Haiti, citing “kidnappings, crime, civil unrest and poor health infrastructure,” and has previously told family members of American officials in Haiti to leave.
“This is not only morally wrong and in violation of U.S. and international law, but it is simply bad foreign policy,” said Guerline Jozef, head of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a San Diego advocacy group.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it “conducted a repatriation flight of approximately 50 Haitian citizens to Haiti.”
The statement continued: “Individuals are removed only if they are found to have no legal basis to remain in the United States.”
The United Nations human rights office reported in March that more than 1,500 people had died from gang violence in Haiti this year and described the country as being in a “catastrophic situation.”
The Biden administration has granted Haitians who entered the United States before the end of 2022 temporary protection from deportation due to ongoing problems in Haiti.
Some congressional Democrats, including Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, have pushed the administration to extend such protections to Haitians who entered the country starting in 2022 and to maintain the pause on deportation flights to Haiti.
News that deportations had resumed brought complaints from other House Democrats. “Given the current dangers and lack of a central government, we should not be deporting people to Haiti. Period,” Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington She said on social media.
Adam Isaacson of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization, said Haitians predominantly wait for appointments at ports of entry to enter the United States through a government app, as encouraged by the administration instead of crossing the border.
“It is difficult to explain the urgency of deporting Haitians,” he said in a text message. “Among nationalities whose citizens crossed the border irregularly, Haiti was the number 15 nationality in the last 6 months, far behind China, India and even Turkey.”
Thomas Cartwright, who tracks government deportation flights for Witness at the Border, an advocacy group, said there have been no commercial flights to the Port-au-Prince airport recently. Gunfire rang out around that airport last month.
This week, the State Department said the airport in the Haitian capital was closed but “limited” flights to two other airports in the country have resumed.
American officials deported the Haitians Thursday to one of those airports, in Cap Haitien, a coastal city a few hours’ drive north of the capital. Cartwright said the U.S. generally flies deported migrants to the capital, although it has made some flights to Cap Haitien in 2021.