US deports migrants to Haiti despite evacuation warning

The administration of US President Joe Biden has sent a deportation flight of dozens of migrants to Haiti, amid worsening gang warfare that prompted it a day earlier to urge its own citizens to evacuate.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the deportation flight to the crisis-hit island country, its second in August, out of Alexandria, Louisiana, on Thursday.

The flight came a day after the State Department called on all American citizens to leave the country immediately due to security concerns.

The plane reportedly had more than 60 Haitian nationals on board when it landed in Port-au-Prince, which is the capital and most populous city of Haiti.

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“Those two cannot happen at the same time. You cannot be evacuating people and deporting people at the same time. That is beyond inhumane,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.

"It is definitely a violation of human rights," she added.

On Wednesday, the US State Department issued a travel advisory urging American citizens in Haiti to leave the country.

"Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest and poor health care infrastructure," the advisory stated.

The United States will continue deporting Haitian migrants back to their country, a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.

"Removals of Haitian nationals encountered at our southern border and repatriation of Haitian nationals encountered at sea continue," the spokesperson said.

"Those interdicted at sea are subject to immediate repatriation, and those encountered in the United States without a legal basis to remain are subject to removal," the spokesperson said.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) commissioned about 850 flights earlier in August to move immigration detainees within the United States as well as approximately 150 removal flights.

The 150 removal flights this month are the most since September of 2021, when the Biden administration conducted 193 such flights, including many to Haiti.

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The United Nations and human rights groups have called on the United States to stop this cruel practice.

Human rights advocates have slammed the Biden administration’s policies toward Haiti, its support for the current regime and continued deportations to the country which is in chaos.

“What’s unconscionable is that the US is propping up the illegitimate and abhorred regime which is responsible for the hellish conditions Haitians endure every day,” said Steven Forester, immigration policy coordinator at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

"The humanitarian situation has considerably deteriorated in Haiti in 2023," the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) said in a statement on Thursday.

It is estimated that more than 2,500 have been killed and 970 kidnapped since January.

At least 71 people were killed in a recent escalation over the last two weeks of August.

"The latest wave of violence has resulted in the forced displacement of over ten thousand people, who have taken refuge in more than twenty makeshift sites and host families," it said.

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Back in July 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated and his wife was seriously wounded after gunmen stormed their home in the hills above the capital Port-au-Prince.

Later on, the Pentagon revealed that some of the former Colombian servicemen arrested after the assassination had been trained by the US military.

Furthermore, a report also revealed that several of the suspects had ties to the US, including serving as informants for the FBI.

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