Less than 24 hours after the United States urged its citizens to leave Haiti “as soon as possible” due to increased violence, authorities deported dozens of Haitian nationals back to the country, an immigration rights advocate has confirmed.
Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance advocacy group, told Al Jazeera she has been in contact with some of the families of the Haitians who were on Thursday’s removal flight from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Port-au-Prince.
US media outlets, including The Hill and the Miami Herald, also reported on the deportation flight, which Jozef said carried more than 60 people. Several flight-tracking websites showed that a plane was set to arrive in the Haitian capital from Alexandria shortly before noon local time.
Resuming deportations to Haiti is “inhumane”, Jozef said, explaining that asylum seekers and migrants are being sent back to the same conditions they fled in the first place, if not worse.
She compared the crisis in Haiti to a raging fire. “You have a burning house, and you have people, including children, in that burning house,” she said. “Instead of sending the firefighters to save the people, you’re dropping people into the fire.”
One of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti has been facing rampant gang violence. It has also suffered from periodic natural disasters and a longstanding political deadlock made worse by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021.
