‘Atrocious cruelty’: Haitian community leaders condemn Biden administration’s resumption of deportations to Haiti

Haitian community leaders in South Florida are sharply criticizing the U.S. government’s resumption of deportations to Haiti even as the nation’s capital is wracked with gang-fueled violence.

One high-profile critic of the Biden administration policy is U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat and the only Haitian American in Congress. She called it “atrocious cruelty” and a “misguided decision.”

And on Tuesday, community leaders and elected officials gathered in Little Haiti in Miami to condemn the policy.

“This decision by the Biden administration is repulsive. It is heartless. It is indefensible. And it is unconscionable,” Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Family Action Network Movement, said in video posted by WTVJ-Ch. 6.

North Lauderdale Mayor Samson Borgelin, who was born in Haiti, said he was “deeply troubled by the continued deportation of Haitians back to their home country despite the humanitarian crisis unfolding there. … The people in Haiti are suffering immensely.”

Borgelin, in a phone interview after the news conference, said much of the country is in crisis, with political incivility, rampant gang violence, a collapsed economy, a lack of institutions and little access to basic services including food, health care and clean water.

“Deporting individuals and families back to these horrific conditions is unthinkable. For me it’s a moral failing that will only serve to further destabilize an already fragile and complex situation,” Borgelin said.

The deportations had been paused once the capital Port-au-Prince became essentially lawless after gangs stepped up their violent attacks beginning on Feb. 29. Cherfilus-McCormick said in a March 11 news conference, that the State Department “confirmed to us and told us that there will not be any deportations.”

That did not last. Deportations resumed on Thursday with a flight of about 50 people.

Cherfilus-McCormick, who represents most of the Haitian American and African American communities in Broward and Palm Beach counties, said in a statement after the news broke about the deportation flight that she was “deeply outraged” by it.

“The reality is that life in Haiti is currently unbearable. Deportation, under these circumstances, is simply an act of atrocious cruelty. We are either the leader of the free world who welcomes all refugees seeking safety, or we’re not. I urge the Biden-Harris Administration to reverse this misguided decision and stop deportations immediately,” Cherfilus McCormick said.

The U.S. operated one deportation flight a month to Haiti from December 2022 through last January, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data. It said deportation flights were frequent after a camp of 16,000 largely Haitian migrants assembled on the riverbanks of Del Rio, Texas, in September 2021 but became rare as fewer Haitians crossed the border illegally from Mexico.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it “will continue to enforce U.S. laws and policy throughout the Florida Straits and the Caribbean region, as well as at the southwest border. U.S. policy is to return noncitizens who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States.”

Florida hasn’t, so far, seen a surge in people attempting to flee the country via boat to make the perilous journey to the state.

On Friday, Miami-Dade Police stopped a 60-foot yacht near the South Florida coast and found what U.S. Customs and Border Protection said were “30+ migrants and two smugglers” on board.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, whose law enforcement officers participated in the interdiction, said the migrants were Haitian and turned over to the Coast Guard for repatriation. Even though deportations had been paused, people interdicted at sea are returned to their countries of origin, including Haiti. FWC said one suspected smuggler was transferred to the custody of Homeland Security Investigations.

In March, the Coast Guard repatriated 65 migrants to Haiti. They’d been found near the Bahamas.

“U.S. policy is to return noncitizens who do not have a fear of persecution or torture or a legal basis to enter the United States. Those interdicted at sea are subject to immediate repatriation pursuant to our longstanding policy and procedures. The United States returns or repatriates migrants interdicted at sea to The Bahamas, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said via email earlier this month.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Post.news.