MIAMI — The Trump administration sent a final deportation flight to Haiti on the eve of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has promised to halt removals during his first 100 days.
In a last salvo of President Donald Trump’s hardline policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement chartered a flight Tuesday operated by Swift Air, which departed from Louisiana and arrived in Port-au-Prince by early afternoon.
A total of 25 deportees landed in the capital, including five infants, Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, the head of Haiti’s Office of National Migration (ONM), told the Miami Herald. Such flights typically include migrants with a criminal record or asylum seekers who have lost their fight to remain in the U.S.
“This flight is the last attempt by the Trump administration as a show of force, a show of power,” immigrant advocate Guerline Jozef said.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration has ramped up the expulsion of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, despite calls by members of Congress to halt deportations during the deadly health crisis. Immigrant advocates contend the tough stance against migrants has continued during the president’s last days in office.
Biden has promised a moratorium on deportations for undocumented immigrants who have been living and working in the United States while he reviews Trump’s immigration policies, including the termination of Temporary Protected Status for nearly 60,000 Haitian migrants. He is expected to introduce sweeping immigration reform on his first day in office.
But Biden’s push to reverse many of Trump’s anti-immigration policies, which have left Haitians and others on a fast-track to deportation, was too late for those on the Swift Air charter flight.
Delva said such deportations are always problematic, given that his office, ONM, has a limited budget and routinely faces challenges in helping to integrate those returned to Haiti without family.
“Since the coronavirus pandemic, I have two people living in my office who we cannot find any relatives for,” said Delva, adding that he has asked for financial assistance from the U.S. Embassy to help deportees get identity documents, find work and housing.
“ONM is not in any shape to confront these situations,” he said. “It’s a situation that’s really complicated.”
U.S. lawmakers have argued that the deportation flights pose a risk for countries like Haiti. The nation had to use hotel rooms reserved for those infected with the virus to quarantine returning deportees. They cite not just the poor health infrastructure across the region, but the outbreak of COVID-19 in ICE detention centers in the U.S., where individuals are not routinely tested.
Ignoring those calls, the Trump administration has continued to operate charter deportation flights to the region, with at least 35 into Haiti since the pandemic hit, according to Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who has been tracking deportation planes chartered by ICE.
After his Wednesday inauguration, Biden is expected to take a number of major actions on immigration. Those plans include making it easier for migrants to seek asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border. He is also expected to introduce a broad immigration bill that, if passed by Congress, would legalize millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., including TPS beneficiaries and the so-called “Dreamers,” undocumented youths brought to the U.S. as children.
But in the meantime, many like Paul Pierrilus, 40, are stuck in limbo.
Pierrilus, a financial consultant in New York, was born in the French Caribbean territory of St. Martin to Haitian parents. At the age of 5, he immigrated to the United States with his parents, younger brother and sister, according to his family. While in his 20s, Pierrilus ran afoul of the law, ending up in jail. Information on the charges against him was not immediately available.
Upon his release, authorities initiated deportation proceedings against him. He was taken into immigration custody in Manhattan on Jan. 11.
“Ever since this situation, he’s been living his life the best that he could,” Neomi Pierrilus, 35, his sister, said.
Paul Pierrilus was initially on the Swift Air flight to Port-au-Prince Tuesday, but was pulled off at the last minute, according to Jozef. She said attorney and U.S. Congressman Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., spent all night on the phone with the Department of Homeland Security, trying to get a stay in his deportation.
“We spoke with Paul; he is here. We are working on getting him back to New York,” Jozef said.
Bocchit Edmond, Haiti’s incoming ambassador to the United States, told the Herald that he was confused about why Pierrilus would be sent to the Caribbean nation.
“My predecessor refused to give him paperwork because he’s not Haitian. The embassy did not give the green light. The guy has never even been here,” he said. “What I would like to know is, can the U.S authorities show which travel documents he is traveling with? My opinion is to not let this guy disembark the plane.”
ICE did not respond to questions regarding his case.
Paul Pierrilus has letters from Haitian and French government officials stating that he is not a citizen of their nations, because his parents did not fill out the required paperwork to register his birth, Jozef and his sister said.
Despite the documentation, ICE informed his family that they had attained the necessary travel documents to expel him to Haiti.
“Nobody has seen this document,” Jozef, the co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance in San Diego, California, said. “They have refused to provide that.”
Jozef said more than 1,300 Haitians including babies have been expelled from the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, many of them right before the Nov. 3 elections.
Among those pegged for removal Tuesday was 19-year-old Christian Laporte, who was deported to Mexico after arriving in the U.S. Sunday with his 9-year-old brother. Both boys had visas. The Haitian teen and his younger sibling had flown to San Francisco and were immediately detained by U.S. Border Patrol. His younger brother is in the process of being sent to a detention center for unaccompanied minors.
“They took their phones away and we haven’t been able to call them,” Jozef said. “Right now they are being held and we are trying to see what can be done.”
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said officers assigned to San Francisco International Airport refused admission to the boys due to admissibility requirements not being satisfied.
“It was determined the minor had previously been attending elementary school in California on a B-1 tourist visa, violating the terms of that visa, and was intending to resume his schooling, again in violation of his visa,” the spokesperson said in a written statement. “His brother presented an F1 student visa, however was missing other required admissibility documentation.”
CBP would not specify what those documents were.
According to Jozef, the older sibling is currently enrolled at Diablo Valley College in California. CBP initially told the Herald that he would be deported on Wednesday, but later said he in fact had already landed in Mexico. The spokesperson said he would be transferred to the Dominican Republic, where his mother lives.
The younger sibling has been classified as an unaccompanied minor and is being transferred into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that operates detention centers for unaccompanied minors.
The spokesperson said the agency “followed policy and procedure” in the designation, adding that without a court-recognized guardian in the U.S., minors are turned over to authorities. U.S. immigration law requires that migrant adults entering the U.S with minors be their biological parent in order to be considered an official guardian by the court.
Jozef criticized CPB for separating the siblings.
“This is the same process as family separation,” Jozef said. “Once you’re separated from your family member or guardian, they treat you as if you were by yourself, which is outrageous because they are the ones creating the separation. They are the ones making him an unaccompanied minor.”
———
