US starts deporting Haitian migrants; ‘Heartless,’ says Boston-area Haitian community

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As U.S. officials started flying Haitian migrants back to their devastated homeland on Sunday, those in the Boston-area Haitian community called the Biden administration’s deportations “very disappointing” and “heartless.”

Thousands of Haitians have been crossing from Mexico into Del Rio, Texas, in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti and the assassination of the country’s president.

The Biden administration is now beginning to send back some of the Haitians, with the first three planes leaving San Antonio for Port-au-Prince on Sunday. Each of the flights had 145 deportees.

The director of the Everett Haitian Community Center called the situation “more than sad.”

“We do understand the Biden administration has to have control over the borders, and needs to minimize the people who come here illegally,” said Rev. Myrlande DesRosiers, director of the EHCC. “At the same time, other things could be done.

“Was it necessary to send them back right now to Haiti?” she added. “I think it’s a poor decision and not humane sending them like that in this way, in this matter, knowing full well of what happened there with the earthquake and assassination. It’s very disappointing, and it’s heartless.”

She noted that President Biden and the administration have been very critical of the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants.

“We expected at least something different,” DesRosiers said. “We’re very disappointed.”

With the people now arriving back in Haiti, DesRosiers said they have no place to go.

“After the earthquake, people are homeless,” she said. “There’s nothing for them, and there haven’t been any details on what resources are being put into place.”

More than 3,000 people have already been removed from the Del Rio camp to planes or detention centers, and Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz expects to have 3,000 of the about 12,600 remaining migrants moved within a day. The rest should be gone within the week, he said.

“We are working around the clock to expeditiously move migrants out of the heat, elements and from underneath this bridge to our processing facilities in order to quickly process and remove individuals from the United States consistent with our laws and our policies,” Ortiz said at news conference at the Del Rio bridge.

The rapid expulsions were made possible by a pandemic-related authority adopted by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 that allows for migrants to be immediately removed from the country without an opportunity to seek asylum. Biden exempted unaccompanied children from the order but let the rest stand.

Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley has been calling for the Biden administration to halt the deportations to Haiti.

“The Biden Administration cannot claim it is doing everything it can to support the Haitian community while continuing to unjustly deport Haitians as the island weathers its worst political, public health and economic crises yet,” Pressley said in a statement.

“We have a moral obligation to lead with compassion,” she added. “That means immediately halting the cruel and callous deportations of our Haitian neighbors and leveraging every resource available to support those fleeing the humanitarian crisis on the island.”

More than 2,000 Haitians were killed as a result of the earthquake last month, and many cities have been reduced to rubble.

Herald wire services were used in this report.

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