US deports about 50 Haitians to nation hit with gang violence

MIAMI (AP) — The Biden administration sent about 50 Haitians back to their country on Thursday, authorities said, marking the first deportation flight in several months to the Caribbean nation struggling with surging gang violence. The Homeland Security Department 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." Authorities didn't offer details of the flight beyond how many deported Haitians were aboard. Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data, said a plane left Alexandria, Louisiana, a hub for deportation operations, and arrived in Cap-haitien, Haiti, after a stop in Miami. Marjorie Dorsaninvil, a U.S. citizen, said her Haitian fiancé, Gerson Joseph, called in tears from the Miami airport Thursday morning to say he was being deported on a flight to Caphaitien with other Haitians and some from other countries, including the Bahamas. He promised to call when he arrived but hadn't done so by early evening. More than 33,000 people fled Haiti's capital in a span of less than two weeks as gangs pillaged homes and attacked state institutions, according to a report last month from the U.N.'S International Organization for Migration. The majority of those displaced traveled to Haiti's southern region, which is generally peaceful compared with Port-au-prince, which has an estimated population of 3 million and is largely paralyzed by gang violence.