Many of them were returning to a country they had not seen for years, and many of those deportees are already plotting another escape. Just a few weeks later, thousands of desperate Haitians who had been detained on the Texas border were deported. After the earthquake, the Biden administration extended “ temporary protected status” for thousands of Haitian migrants and refugees already in the US to live and work legally. Overlapping calamities led the US to advise its embassy staff to stay in the compound, and its citizens to avoid all travel to the country. People displaced by gang violence occupy a school turned into a long-term shelter in Port-au-Prince. An earthquake the following month added to Haiti’s misery, killing at least 2,200 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless. When President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in his home on 7 July in circumstances that remain murky, the situation only worsened. Violent gangs rule the streets, kidnapping residents rich and poor alike for ransom every day, while shortages of fuel and basic goods are common, and public services from traffic lights to sewer systems are practically nonexistent. There is a Haitian proverb, beyond mountains there are mountains, loosely meaning that after one problem comes another, and in Port-au-Prince, that saying is a harrowing reality. For their son, a Chilean citizen who was born in Santiago, it was his first ever visit to the country. It was his first time back to the country after five years in Chile with his wife. “But I didn’t know it had gotten this bad.” “It’s no secret that Haiti is poor and unsafe,” said Joseph, who along with thousands of his countrymen was detained in southern Texas last month before being shackled and flown to Port-au-Prince.
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