US Resumes Deportation of Haitian Migrants

Facts

• The Biden administration resumed deportations of migrants from Haiti on Thursday, sending dozens of people back to their home country that has been grappling with surging gang violence.¹
• The US Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a statement saying that it 'will continue to enforce US laws and policy' throughout various regions where migrants are coming, adding that it will return noncitizens 'who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States.'²
• DHS authorities didn’t provide further detail, but flight-tracking advocacy group Witness at the Border said a plane with 74 people left from Alexandria, Louisiana, a deportation hub, and arrived in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, following a stopover in Miami.³
• Deportation flights to Haiti have been delayed since DHS canceled a flight on Feb. 29 — when armed gangs attacked major airports in Port-au-Prince before raiding Haiti’s two largest prisons and releasing 4K criminals.⁴
• The last deportation took place in January, and the situation presents a political challenge as Pres. Joe Biden faces scrutiny from both sides of the immigration debate. In late 2022, Biden granted amnesty to Haitians due to ongoing problems in the country.⁵
• After gangs seized control of Haiti’s institutions in recent months, hundreds of thousands have tried to flee the country, and the United Nations claims that 5.5M Haitians need humanitarian assistance.⁴

Sources: ¹Associated Press, ²NBC, ³CBS, ⁴Miami Herald and ⁵New York Times.

Narratives

• Progressive narrative, as provided by Guardian. Deporting Haitian asylum seekers back to a country that is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis is nothing short of a moral blithe on the Biden administration and the US as a whole. Instead of showing empathy to people fleeing a country that has been hijacked by gangs, the US is callously sending them back to a place where they face persecution and a humanitarian catastrophe. Human rights must come before politics, and the Biden administration must end all deportations to Haiti.
• Conservative narrative, as provided by RealClearWire. The Biden administration and left-wing nonprofits have been pushing a disastrous foreign policy agenda that has destabilized Haiti. Now the radical left is inviting thousands, if not millions, of illegal migrants into the US and other countries. The situation in Haiti is a tragedy that merits our sympathy, but the US cannot welcome an unending wave of Haitian migrants, especially when our Southern Border is being overrun by millions every year.

Predictions