As the Associated Press reports, the United States Department of Homeland Security indicated that it was following its policy of returning noncitizens who do not establish a legal basis for remaining in the United States to their home countries. The DHS statement declared 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.”
The Haitian Bridge Alliance convened in Geneva, Switzerland last week to speak ahead of the United Nations. In front of the committee, we called out the deliberate and forceful deportations to Haiti that the Biden Administration persists in carrying out. pic.twitter.com/Uc4k1hydA7— HaitianBridge (@HaitianBridge) April 22, 2024
This is unacceptable. Sending anyone back to Haiti right now is nothing short of a death sentence.@POTUS & @SecMayorkas must re-designate TPS for Haiti and halt all deportations to the island immediately. https://t.co/sryMBchu6j— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) April 19, 2024
Resuming deportations to Haiti under these circumstances, is simply an act of atrocious cruelty. I urge the Biden-Harris Administration to reverse this misguided decision and stop deportations immediately. See my full statement here: https://t.co/llcUsjQeC2 pic.twitter.com/NnUQTNJzio— Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (@CongresswomanSC) April 19, 2024
According to the letter, if the United States could not keep its own people safe in Haiti, then there stood little chance of the Haitian government keeping those who were deported by the U.S. safe either. “If the United States cannot keep its personnel safe in Haiti, then the Haitian government is unlikely to keep Haitian nationals safe.”
Though the U.S. had not been able to return migrants via plane to Haiti before April 18, it has repatriated them via boat. “Those interdicted at sea are subject to immediate repatriation pursuant to our longstanding policy and procedures,” a spokeswoman for DHS told NBC News. The United States returns or repatriates migrants interdicted at sea to The Bahamas, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.
Furthermore, U.S. officials note that individuals who are repatriated at sea to Haiti are not being sent to the capital, where the violence is the thickest, but to less central areas of Haiti. Advocates for Haitian migrants say that this concession is not good enough, considering the widespread violence.
Gurline Jozef, a human rights advocate and co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, the group that led the letter from the human rights organizations, said that the United States’ claims that accepting Haitian migrants into the TPS system would cause a mass migration event are overblown.
“It is almost impossible to leave Haiti,” Jozef told NBC News, “There is no excuse to send anyone to anywhere in Haiti right now. They are using this as an excuse for the inexcusable. The whole country is unstable.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
