PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Biden administration has started to deport Haitians back to Port-au-Prince even as an extreme wave of brutal violence continues to force Haitians to flee their homes and an increasing number of Haitians are struggling to find enough to eat.

The 65 Haitians who quietly landed in Port-au-Prince on Sept. 26 marked the first deportation to the Haitian capital since flights were temporarily halted after an armed insurgency in late February. When they did resume in April, the Department of Homeland Security instead sent the Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights into Cap-Haïtien.

The unusual use of the overcrowded city’s small international airport at a time when it was already struggling to cope with Haitians trying to flee the violence in the capital and neighboring Artibonite region was immediately denounced by U.S.-based immigration advocates.

They accused U.S. authorities of lacking compassion, and not caring for the safety of Haitians, some of whom would need to travel through gang-controlled roads to return home. They also point out that the federal government expanded Temporary Protected Status for Haitians already in the U.S. and ordered the evacuation of U.S. citizens from Haiti.

Despite recent efforts by U.S. authorities to project an image of progress in the capital since the arrival of 410 police officers to lead an international armed force, the situation remains volatile and deadly. The violence has killed over 3,800 people so far this year. And gangs have attacked police officers and stations, set fire to neighborhoods, hospitals and schools, and broken out thousands of inmates from prison. Over half of all the displaced are children.

Last week, a gang in the Artibonite region slaughtered at least 70 residents in the town of Pont-Sondé, days after the United States and United Nations issued sanctions against its leader. The attacks have displaced an estimated 6,270 people, the U.N. said, adding to the 700,000 already displaced.

A week before the resumption of the Port-au-Prince flight, unknown individuals also murdered the longtime head of the country’s migration office for northern Haiti, Kerwine Augustin, in Cap-Haïtien.

A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Homeland Security in charge of carrying out deportation flights, told the Miami Herald in a statement that several federal agencies along with Haitian authorities had determined it was feasible to send people to Port-Au-Prince. They said that it made sense to do so given the city’s central location and because most deportees the U.S. returns are from the area.

“ICE works closely with government and international partners on the ground to conduct removal flights in a safe, secure, and orderly manner... ICE has historically sent removal flights to the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, as there are more robust reception resources available at this location.” said the spokesperson.

An official from Haiti’s Office of National Migration confirmed to the Herald that the flight had landed on Sept. 26 in the nation’s capital.

The U.S. deportation flight comes as the neighboring Dominican Republic has started to round up people as part of it to deport up to 10,000 undocumented Haitians every week. By Friday, the Dominican government had rounded up 1,100 individuals to deport to Haiti, some of whom were also Black Dominicans, according to some activists.

“Amid this huge humanitarian tragedy, reparations are continuing,” said Edwin Paraison, executive of the Zile Foundation in the Dominican Republic and a former minister of Haitians Living Abroad.

The ICE-chartered flight left Miami on the morning of Sept. 26 and made stops in Alexandria, Louisiana and Kingston, Jamaica, before landing in Port-au-Prince, Thomas Cartwright, an independent analyst who tracks ICE deportation flights said, noting the route was a bit unusual given the stop in Jamaica.

Flight data records show that the plane was an Airbus A320, which can carry as many as 200 passengers. Haiti’s Office of National Migration said there were 60 men and five women aboard when the plane landed in Port-au-Prince.

Haitians across the country are living in difficult conditions. More than three dozen schools in the capital currently serve as camps and have been unable to open for the new school year because those living there say they have nowhere to go. And famine is spreading, with 1 in 2 Haitians facing acute hunger. The U.N. has said its available funding to help Haitians in need remains low.

Citing the ongoing gang violence and humanitarian crisis, the U.N. has stressed that countries should not send people back to Haiti and its Commission on Human Rights specifically asked the U.S. to halt deportation flights.

Patrick J. Lechleitner, ICE’s acting director, told the Miami Herald in June that deportation flights to Haiti have continued because the federal government wants “to make sure there is still a consequence for irregular migration.” The top immigration official acknowledged, however, that there were concerns about sending Haitians back.

“We don’t ever want to repatriate an individual to an area where it’s unsafe or they can be in some kind of harm. That’s not the intent,” he said. “Our immigration system is not punitive.”

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