With less than two weeks be­fore Don­ald J. Trump is sworn in­to of­fice as the next pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, a Hait­ian group here is urg­ing the in­cum­bent Joe Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion to halt the de­por­ta­tion of Haitians.

The Hait­ian Bridge Al­liance (HBA) has strong­ly con­demned the ad­min­is­tra­tion for what it de­scribed as the “bla­tant vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al and do­mes­tic laws through the con­tin­ued de­por­ta­tion of asy­lum seek­ers to the Re­pub­lic of Haiti”.

HBA said that the US De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty (DHS) has been de­port­ing Hait­ian na­tion­als who are seek­ing asy­lum.

“These ac­tions un­der­mine the Unit­ed States’ long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to hu­man rights, due process, and in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions un­der the 1951 Refugee Con­ven­tion and the 1980 Refugee Act,” said HBA’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Guer­line Jozef.

She said the re­cent wave of de­por­ta­tions, in­clud­ing vul­ner­a­ble Hait­ian fam­i­lies flee­ing vi­o­lence, per­se­cu­tion and im­mense vi­o­lence, “demon­strates a dis­turb­ing dis­re­gard for le­gal pro­tec­tions guar­an­teed to asy­lum seek­ers un­der US and in­ter­na­tion­al law”.

Jozef not­ed that, in Haiti, more than 700,000 Haitians have been dis­placed due to gang vi­o­lence and that more than 4,000 have been mur­dered.

She said that, for the past sev­er­al years, the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State has des­ig­nat­ed the French-speak­ing Caribbean­Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try as a “lev­el 4 – do not trav­el des­ti­na­tion due to ex­treme vi­o­lence.”

Fur­ther­more, the Jozef said Wash­ing­ton has evac­u­at­ed most of its per­son­nel, in­clud­ing US cit­i­zens from the Caribbean coun­try and that the vi­o­lence has been so se­vere that on De­cem­ber 9, 2024, Amer­i­can Air­lines an­nounced that it had in­def­i­nite­ly sus­pend­ed all flights to Haiti.

“De­port­ing in­di­vid­u­als to coun­tries in tur­moil, such as Haiti, where po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence, in­se­cu­ri­ty and hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises pre­vail, con­tra­venes the prin­ci­ple of non-re­foule­ment, which pro­hibits re­turn­ing in­di­vid­u­als to places where their lives or free­dom would be threat­ened,” Jozef said.

“It is un­con­scionable that the Biden-Har­ris Ad­min­is­tra­tion, which claims to rep­re­sent the ‘soul of Amer­i­ca,’ is send­ing Hait­ian asy­lum seek­ers back to Haiti, ef­fec­tive­ly con­demn­ing them to a death sen­tence. This ad­min­is­tra­tion has re­peat­ed­ly failed to up­hold its moral and le­gal oblig­a­tions.

“By per­pet­u­at­ing an­ti-Black im­mi­grant poli­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly against asy­lum seek­ers of African de­scent, the ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ues to vi­o­late both do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al laws,” Josef said, adding that Hait­ian asy­lum seek­ers, flee­ing unimag­in­able vi­o­lence, have a law­ful right to seek pro­tec­tion.

“De­port­ing them back to dan­ger is not on­ly cru­el and racist, it is a bla­tant vi­o­la­tion of the law,” she said, urg­ing the Unit­ed States Con­gress, in par­tic­u­lar, the Con­gres­sion­al Black Cau­cus, the Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus, and the Haiti Cau­cus, to “ex­er­cise its over­sight au­thor­i­ty and hold the ad­min­is­tra­tion ac­count­able for its fail­ure to ad­here to the Refugee Act of 1980, which cod­i­fies the Unit­ed States’ oblig­a­tions to pro­tect asy­lum seek­ers.

“Hait­ian Bridge Al­liance reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to ad­vo­cat­ing for the rights and dig­ni­ty of all asy­lum seek­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of African de­scent, and calls on all hu­man rights groups and the pub­lic to stand against these vi­o­la­tions of hu­man rights,” Jozef said.

“To­geth­er, we must de­mand that the Unit­ed States live up to its promise and le­gal oblig­a­tion as a safe haven for those flee­ing per­se­cu­tion and vi­o­lence,” she added.

Last month, Caribbean-Amer­i­can De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress­woman Yvette D. Clarke joined US law­mak­ers and im­mi­gra­tion ad­vo­cates in call­ing on the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion to pro­tect Black im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ties dur­ing the lame duck ses­sion.

The leg­is­la­tors said they were par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about how Trump’s pro­posed im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies will im­pact Black com­mu­ni­ties and fam­i­lies of mixed sta­tus.

Trump, who will be sworn in on Jan­u­ary 20, has vowed to con­duct mass de­por­ta­tion of im­mi­grants, par­tic­u­lar­ly Haitians. He had made the is­sue a cen­tral theme of his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign.

Clarke, the daugh­ter of Ja­maican im­mi­grants, who rep­re­sents the pre­dom­i­nant­ly Caribbean 9th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict in Brook­lyn, New York, joined her col­leagues in send­ing a let­ter to Biden, urg­ing him to ex­er­cise his ex­ist­ing le­gal au­thor­i­ties and adopt sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive ac­tions.

These in­clude ex­tend­ing and re­des­ig­nat­ing Tem­po­rary Pro­tec­tive Sta­tus (TPS) for cur­rent­ly des­ig­nat­ed coun­tries; clear­ing the TPS pro­cess­ing back­log; fi­nal­iz­ing a rule to pro­vide au­to-ex­ten­sions for work per­mits; tak­ing im­me­di­ate steps to pri­or­i­tize the pro­cess­ing of work per­mits across all cat­e­gories; and des­ig­nat­ing spe­cial stu­dent re­lief (SSR) to Niger­ian F-1 stu­dents study­ing in the Unit­ed States.

“Dur­ing Pres­i­dent-elect Trump’s pre­vi­ous term, we saw the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion en­act detri­men­tal poli­cies, such as ex­pand­ing mi­grant de­ten­tion pro­grams and build­ing a wall along the US-Mex­i­co Bor­der,” the law­mak­ers wrote in their let­ter.

“Fur­ther in 2019, we wit­nessed Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment de­tain mi­grants at record-high lev­els with Black de­tainees fac­ing abuse at dis­pro­por­tion­ate rates.

“With his pledge to con­duct the largest mass de­por­ta­tion in his­to­ry and en­list the mil­i­tary to car­ry out this plan, we are ex­treme­ly con­cerned that peo­ple of African de­scent will be tar­get­ed at high­er rates,” they added.

HBA has al­so strong­ly con­demned Trump’s re­port­ed plans to de­clare a na­tion­al emer­gency to en­act a mass de­por­ta­tion pro­gram, in­volv­ing Hait­ian im­mi­grants.

“Such a pro­pos­al rep­re­sents an alarm­ing threat to hu­man rights, the rule of law, specif­i­cal­ly those seek­ing asy­lum and safe­ty,” said Jozef, ap­plaud­ing the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) for fil­ing a law­suit to gath­er spe­cif­ic de­tails from the US Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) agency on how Trump will car­ry out his plan.

Last month, im­mi­gra­tion ad­vo­cates in New York ex­pressed out­rage and alarm over pro­posed plans by the in­com­ing Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion to re­voke a Unit­ed States fed­er­al pol­i­cy that has re­strict­ed Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) agents from ar­rest­ing Caribbean and oth­er im­mi­grants at or near “sen­si­tive lo­ca­tions”, such as hous­es of wor­ship, schools and hos­pi­tals with­out pri­or ap­proval from su­per­vi­sors.