PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Several children, including a one-year-old child born in the United States, were among the latest batch of Haitians deported from the United States on Thursday to the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.
Haitian authorities confirmed that the child arrived on the ICE Air Global X charter flight A6196, carrying 57 Haitians, including several other children born in the United States, when the second flight in a week landed in Cap-Haïtien.
Deportation flights to Haiti had been occurring, on average, once a month, but the Trump administration has ramped up its programme following the US Supreme Court’s decision authorising the government to end Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
More than 300,000 Haitians were enrolled in this humanitarian programme, which allowed them to live and work legally in the United States due to the situation in their country.
Haitian immigrant rights organisations and other stakeholders argue that Haiti remains far too dangerous for mass returns, while the DHS maintains that the situation has improved sufficiently to allow Haitians to return.
Of Haiti’s nearly 12 million inhabitants, more than half are in need of humanitarian assistance due to escalating gang violence and worsening poverty.
Furthermore, nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced by gangs, as many as during the 2010 earthquake, which prompted the Obama administration to grant TPS.
Earlier this week, the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti, known by its French acronym, BINUH, said at least 1,408 people were killed and 656 injured from April through June this year.
It said this was about 14 per cent fewer casualties than during the first three months of the year, a modest decline masking starkly different realities across the country.
By May, nearly 1.47 million people were internally displaced across Haiti, more than half of them children.
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