US-born children among latest group of Haitians deported from United States

Several children, including a one-year-old born in the United States, were among 57 Haitians deported to Haiti on Thursday as the U.S. government steps up removals to the crisis-hit Caribbean country.

Haitian authorities confirmed that the group arrived in Cap-Haïtien aboard an ICE Air charter flight. Several other U.S.-born children were reportedly among those on board.

The flight was the second deportation flight to arrive in Haiti within a week, marking an increase from the roughly once-a-month schedule previously reported.

The accelerated removals come amid uncertainty surrounding protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the United States.

The Trump administration has sought to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, a humanitarian designation that has allowed more than 300,000 people to legally live and work in the United States because of conditions in their home country.

Haitian immigrant rights organizations and other advocates have argued that conditions in Haiti remain too dangerous for large-scale returns, pointing to widespread gang violence, displacement and a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has maintained that conditions have improved sufficiently to allow Haitians to return.

More than half of Haiti’s nearly 12 million residents are estimated to need humanitarian assistance as the country continues to grapple with armed violence, political instability and poverty.

The security crisis has also driven record levels of displacement.

By May, nearly 1.47 million people were internally displaced across Haiti, more than half of them children. The figure is comparable to the number displaced following the devastating 2010 earthquake, after which the United States initially designated Haiti for TPS.

The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) reported earlier this week that at least 1,408 people were killed and another 656 injured between April and June.

The number of casualties was approximately 14% lower than during the first three months of the year, but the U.N. cautioned that the decline masked sharply different security conditions across the country.

The latest deportations come as Haiti continues to struggle to contain powerful armed groups that have displaced families and disrupted access to basic services in several parts of the country.