Back in Haiti, expelled migrant family plans to flee again

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — You’re lucky, the U.S. officials said. “You’re going to spot your family.”

The authorities had called retired numbers corresponding to raffle-like tickets the Haitians had been issued erstwhile they were detained aft crossing the borderline into Texas. As each fig was called, different bedraggled migrant stood up.

“Everyone was happy,” recalled Jhon Celestin. “But I was not happy. I saw it was a lie.”

The prize was a one-way travel backmost to the spot they had truthful desperately wanted to escape. And truthful it was that Celestin arrived successful Haiti aboard the past formation Wednesday to the superior of Port-au-Prince, a metropolis the 38-year-old near 3 years agone successful hunt of a better-paying occupation to assistance enactment his family.

He is among immoderate 2,000 migrants that the U.S. expelled to Haiti this week via much than 17 flights, with much scheduled successful upcoming days. Staying successful Haiti is not an enactment for galore of them. Like Celestin, they program to fly their state again arsenic soon arsenic they can.

It had stopped drizzling arsenic Celestin near the airdrome and stepped retired into streets choked with particulate and smoke, carrying a container successful 1 manus and his 2-year-old girl successful the other.

Chloe, calved successful Chile, looked astir softly astatine her caller surroundings arsenic Celestin and his woman asked to get someone’s telephone to telephone a taxi. It would beryllium much expensive, but they didn’t privation their toddler riding connected a motorcycle — a communal means of transport successful metropolis wherever vehicles indispensable veer astir smoldering garbage dumps, dense postulation and the occasional burning barricade.

After a 35-minute ride, they arrived astatine a location whose basement they would stock with a relative who had been expelled from the U.S. the time before. The location is located a mates blocks distant from wherever 15 radical were killed successful a shooting rampage successful June, including a writer and governmental activist. Among those charged was a constabulary officer.

“This is not what I imagined, being here,” said Celestin’s wife, 26-year-old Delta de León, who was calved successful the Dominican Republic to a Dominican begetter and a Haitian mother. “But present I am, though I anticipation to permission soon due to the fact that the 1 happening I’ve ne'er wanted for my girl is for her to turn up here.”

Haiti has much than 11 cardinal people; astir 60% marque little than $2 a day. A cornerstone of its system is wealth from Haitians surviving overseas -- $3.8 cardinal a year, oregon 35% of the country’s GDP.

The Haiti to which the migrants are returning is much violent, much impoverished and much politically unstable than the 1 they left. It is struggling to retrieve from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and from a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck confederate Haiti successful August, sidesplitting much than 2,200 radical and destroying oregon damaging tens of thousands of homes. Thousands of radical unrecorded successful squalid shelters aft their homes were razed successful caller months arsenic a effect of rampant pack violence.

Celestin and his woman don’t program connected staying long.

On his archetypal time backmost successful Haiti, Celestin spent respective hours sprawled connected the queen-sized furniture helium shared with his woman and daughter. He chatted connected the telephone with his sister, who lives successful Chile, and with friends elsewhere arsenic helium planned his family’s departure. He paused lone to get a haircut and to fig retired however to prime up a wealth transfer, since helium had antecedently sent each his recognition documents to his household successful Miami successful hopes helium would beryllium reunited with them with this month.

The caller program is to instrumentality to Chile, wherever helium built homes arsenic a operation idiosyncratic aft obtaining a visa. With the pandemic drying up jobs and freezing the economy, the household decided to effort their luck astatine the U.S.-Mexico border, traveling by foot, autobus and vessel astatine nighttime for astir a month.

“What wounded maine the most, what frustrated maine the most, was the dormant radical I saw,” migrants who died on the way, said de León.

The toll of that trip, the conditions astatine the borderline and the caller deportation formation with a sick kid -- Chloe had developed an incessant cough portion the household camped nether a Texas span -- meant de León didn’t slumber overmuch her archetypal nighttime successful Haiti.

“I cried due to the fact that I don’t privation to beryllium here,” she said.

De León intends to transverse the borderline into the Dominican Republic with her girl arsenic soon arsenic imaginable to reunite with her father, sister and member portion her hubby flies up to Chile.

But first, the household planned to spell to the coastal metropolis of Jacmel successful confederate Haiti to spot much relatives, a risky travel due to the fact that it entailed crossing gang-controlled territory. Buses often signifier convoys for safety, and sometimes wage gangs for harmless passage. The unit successful that vicinity has reached specified precocious levels that Doctors Without Borders precocious closed its session determination aft 15 years.

Breakfast connected that archetypal greeting successful Haiti consisted of spaghetti and bits of avocado. Normally, Chloe has beverage and fruit, but de León said she was waiting connected a wealth transportation to bargain immoderate basal nutrient items. She disquieted astir her daughter’s health, and astir her future.

“The aboriginal I privation for her is simply a amended life, a much comfy one, the benignant a mediocre idiosyncratic tin springiness their children,” she said. “If that beingness has to beryllium successful the United States, truthful beryllium it. If it has to beryllium successful Chile, fto it beryllium successful Chile. But fto it beryllium a amended life.”

On their 2nd time successful Haiti, the mates decided to instrumentality the hazard and spell to Jacmel. A minibus waited arsenic Celestin and de León grabbed their bags and enactment connected caller shoes they had bought earlier that morning: black-and-white sneakers for him, achromatic sandals for her.

“Na pale!” Celestin’s relative called retired to them successful Creole -- “We’ll talk!” And the mates boarded the minibus, placing their small miss betwixt them arsenic they embarked connected the treacherous roadworthy to Jacmel.

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.