By admin 
The Department of Homeland Security sent its second deportation flight in a week to Haiti on Thursday, returning dozens of Haitians to the unstable Caribbean country, including several children born in the U.S.
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The children were among several families aboard the Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight scheduled to land in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti’s second-largest city and the main gateway for international flights since gang violence prompted restrictions on U.S. carriers flying into Port-au-Prince.
The youngest person aboard the ICE Air flight was 1-year-old born in the U.S., according to information shared with Haitian authorities ahead of the plane’s arrival.
The ICE Air deportation charter flight GXA6196 originated in Alexandria, LA and departed Opa-locka Executive Airport at 10:04 a.m. for Cap-Haïtien, where it was scheduled to arrive at 11:33 a.m.
Until now, deportation flights to Haiti have taken place an average of once a month. The previous flight was last Thursday and had 161 deportees, including over a dozen individuals with criminal records that included sex crimes involving children.
Last month, however, U.S. officials warned Haitian authorities to expect an increase in deportations following the Supreme Court’s decision to allow President Donald Trump to end Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status designation even while litigation challenging the termination continues in the courts. The plan at the time, was to return up to 250 Haitians a week via two weekly flights.
Asked if DHS had provided official notice on when it would begin ramping up flights and if Thursday’s Global X charter with more than 50 persons aboard was the start of such a charge, Haitian officials said they’ve yet to receive any official notice. Haiti Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé previously told the Herald that the timing was not right to return Haitians to the country, which is not only grappling with roads blocked by gangs, government buildings and schools overtaken by the displace and a surge in violence, but also trying to organize its first general elections in a decade.
The increase in flights would potentially signify an increase in Haitians being arrested and placed in deportation proceedings following the end of TPS. More than 300,000 Haitians were enrolled in the humanitarian program, which allowed them to legally live and work in the United States because of conditions in their homeland. Haitian immigrant-rights groups and others have argued that Haiti remains far too dangerous for large scale returns, while DHS has maintained that conditions have improved enough to send Haitians back.
Of Haiti’s nearly 12 million people more than half need humanitarian assistance because of surging gang violence while also facing deepening poverty. Meanwhile, nearly 1. 5million people have been displaced by gangs — the same number displaced by the 2010 earthquake, which prompted the Obama administration to designate Haiti for TPS.
“Following its mass de-legalization efforts, this administration is knowingly sending people, including children, back into danger in Haiti. There is no limit to its cruelty and disregard for human life,” said Savi Arvey, director of policy refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First. “This is the 9th flight this year and on average we’ve seen one flight per month since December 2023.”
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The flight comes amid ongoing gang attacks in Haiti and a broader immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, which saw nearly 50,000 arrests in July. It is the highest single monthly arrest total by the Department of Homeland Security since Trump began his second term, according to the recently released government data provided by ICE to the Deportation Data Project based at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA.figures. Among them are over 7,000 arrests in Florida and 500 in Ohio, two states with populations of Haitians who previously had TPS and now are in danger of detention and deportation.
READ MORE: DHS boasts it returned gang leaders, sexual offenders to an unstable Haiti
In addition to being arrested at traffic stops, Haitians are also being outfitted with electronic ankle monitors by federal authorities in the Ohio-area. No one appears to be immune, not individuals with asylum applications pending or pastors, two of whom were recently arrested by ICE in Springfield.
This weekend, faith leaders are expected to travel to Springfield to request the immediate release of one of the pastors, Joubert Adrien, from immigration detention after he was detained while riding as a passenger in a car. A husband and father of two children, ages 15 and 7, he has lived in the United States for five years. Faith leaders also note that he has no criminal history, no prior immigration detention and no final order of removal. He also has not lived in Haiti for more than 20 years.
This week dozens of Haitian migrants for example, were brought to the Krome Detention Center in southwest Miami-Dade country after being arrested in front of grocery stores and shopping malls.
On Tuesday, the United States was among several foreign governments offering its “deepest condolences to the victims and their families” after armed gangs stormed the mountainside farming community of Kenscoff above the capital, killing dozens of people and kidnapping more than 50 others, including infants. The gang leader is threatening to kill them or use them as human shields, if police move against his fighters.
Some of the victims killed were massacred in a church that had become a place of refuge for those displaced by the repeated violence; others were shot as they fled or burned alive.
It was unclear where those aboard Thursday’s flight were from in Haiti or how long they had been in the U.S. As reflected in the birthplace of some of the younger passengers, some of those being deported had previously lived in Brazil, which is part of a broader migration route that had emerged after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.
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