SENT INTO DESPAIR

Journeys of 2 Haitian families — one deported, the other making it into the U.S. — show contradictions of U.S. immigration policy

Jean Sony Eugene and his eight-months-pregnant wife arrived in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, in mid-September, still shaken after coming upon corpses in the Darién Gap during a hellish two-month journey from Chile.

Domingue Paul arrived with his wife and two kids in October.

They were among thousands who ended up in this border town across the Rio Grande from Del Rio.

Like many others in the camp, the families had been fleeing violence for years. Eugene’s mom was shot and killed in the small shop she ran in Haiti. When he moved to Santiago, Chile, his small business was targeted by a street gang.

Paul also fled Haiti after the murder of a family member. He, too, abandoned his life in Santiago and risked everything for a shot at getting into the United States.

The stories of both families

lay bare the contradictions of U.S. immigration policy.

From last September to the end of the year, 40 percent of Haitians detected by Customs and Border Protection — 10,666 individuals, according to agency data — were sent on flights to Haiti, including women and children.

Those flights took off under Title 42, a U.S. public health rule that was used by the Trump and Biden administrations to expel migrants in the name of preventing the spread of COVID-19. (Facing legal scrutiny, the policy has recently been partially blocked.)

Under pressure, when so many people assembled at the border in September, the Biden administration acted quickly to clear the area — expelling some Haitians but allowing thousands more into the U.S.

By contrast, the administration has turned back hundreds of thousands of Central

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Quettlie Fanfan, her husband, Domingue Paul, and daughter, Ruthshamma Paul Fanfan, 2, wait to get on a bus going from Ciudad Acuña, across from Del Rio, to the Mexican city of Torreón in hopes of finding housing and jobs.

A migrant looks out of a bus leaving for Torreón. Mexico saw a 773 percent rise in Haitians seeking asylum in 2021.