53 people deported from US land in Haiti

Port-au-Prince, Oct 28 (EFE).- A flight carrying 53 Haitian citizens, including 13 children, who were deported from Texas, United States, landed Thursday in Port-au-Prince, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) told Efe.

Tents house the reception area for the arrivals, to whom food is delivered, orientation is provided, and who undergo Covid-19 tests while attended to by IOM, Unicef and Red Cross personnel.

They are then allowed to leave, hiding their faces with clothes and avoiding talking to the press waiting outside the facilities, where some were received by relatives.

There are also those who arrive at this area of the airport to try to leave the country again after a forced return.

Junior Mondesir told Efe that on Sep. 26 he arrived on a return flight like Thursday’s along with four members of his family, who had been living in Chile for five years.

Now he wants to get the necessary documents to return to the South American country, where some of his relatives still live.

Next to him, another man who preferred to remain anonymous, said that he was deported a week ago from Texas, where he lived, and that he has returned to look for his passport misplaced when he was detained on arrival.

More than 10,000 people have deported to Haiti since September. Most have come from the US, which forced the return of 8,000 Haitians, although they also arrived from countries such as the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos and Cuba.

The migration crisis has affected the entire American continent for months, with thousands of people crossing from south to north, including families with children born in countries such as Chile and Brazil, where their parents emigrated to years ago. EFE

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