Several children, including a one-year-old born in the United States, were among the latest group of Haitians deported to the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nation on Thursday according to multiple news outlets.
Haitian authorities said the child was among 57 Haitians aboard ICE Air Global X charter flight A6196, which landed in Cap-Haitien. Several other children born in the United States were also reportedly on the flight, the second deportation flight to arrive in Haiti within a week.
Deportation flights to Haiti had previously operated roughly once a month, but the Trump administration has accelerated the programme following a US Supreme Court decision allowing the government to terminate Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
The Trump administration has begun gradually removing Haitians who are in the United States illegally following the expiration of the country’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programme -MSN.
After courts cleared the way for the administration to end TPS for Haitians, roughly 350,000 people lost both their authorization to work in the United States and their protection from deportation, making them increasingly vulnerable to enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In late July, ICE contacted hundreds of Haitians living in the Springfield, Ohio, area and instructed them to report to a local federal immigration office. According to attorneys who spoke with the Haitian Times, many of those who appeared for their appointments were fitted with ankle monitors.
More than 300,000 Haitians were enrolled in TPS, a humanitarian programme that allowed them to legally live and work in the United States because of conditions in Haiti. Haitian immigrant rights groups and other advocates argue that the country remains too dangerous for large-scale returns. The Department of Homeland Security, however, maintains that conditions have improved enough to permit Haitians to return.
Haiti, home to nearly 12 million people, is facing a deepening humanitarian crisis, with more than half of the population in need of assistance amid escalating gang violence and worsening poverty. Nearly 1.5 million people have also been displaced by gang violence — a figure comparable to the displacement caused by the 2010 earthquake, which prompted the Obama administration to grant Haitians 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
Arch Bishop of Miami, Thomas Wenski, has called on the Trump administration to show mercy as he says Haiti is still too dangerous for returning Haitians. He cited last weeks massacre of 47 people and mass kidnappings in Kenskoff ,which overlooks the Haitian Capital of Port Au Prince, as reason enough to return to the TPS programme. Twenty two of those 47 killings took place inside a church.
“This shows that the country is not safe, that Haiti is still a house on fire. This should cause our administration to rethink its decision to send back into Haiti over 300,000 Haitians,” he said, urging a rethink of the TPS revocation as he called for a reconsideration of the current policy.
“Haiti is a tragedy, and what we’re doing is compounding it by trying to send these people back,” he said, adding “even if you send a couple of planes a week, it’ll take several years before you are successful in deporting all those people.
“And what happens in the meantime is that they’ve lost their work permits, and they’ve lost their driver’s licenses for the most part. So, if they can’t work, they can’t pay their rent, they can’t buy food. Relatives in Haiti who depend upon remittances … will also be deprived of critical funds needed to educate children in the Caribbean nation,” he added – CMC.
