By Daina Beth Solomon

MEXICO CITY – The Mexican Migration officials placed a Haitian migrant named Nikel Norassaint on a flight to Villahermosa in the southeastern region of Mexico last week. He had just been taken into custody near the U.S.–Mexico border.

His only clue was the water below, and he arrived in Port-au-Prince an hour later. This would be his first trip to this part of the country since 2005.

Norassaint (49), recalled that she said “Wow, Haiti,” to Norassaint. My heart nearly stopped.

Norassaint is a Haitian refugee who had lived in the United States for 20 years. Another Haitian migrant was also on board and said they were surprised to see them return to Haiti without prior warning.

After more than doubling the amount of people who were expelled from the United States last month, they joined approximately 7,000 others being expelled to Haiti. Mexico also sent 200 total people back to Haiti.

Migrant advocacy groups and even a former U.S. special envoy to Haiti https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haitian-migrants-face-crucial-choices-expulsion-flights-ramp-up-2021-09-23 have condemned deportations to the Caribbean country beset by poverty and violence as inhumane, casting doubt on pledges from both the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to aid struggling migrants.

Norassaint stated that he was hopeful that Biden who advocated for “humane” immigration policies had opened the doors for migrants as he entered Del Rio to apply for entry into the United States.

After hearing about the U.S.’s deportations, he fled to Mexico. Officials from the Mexican Migration Agency detained him at Ciudad Acuna near Del Rio, and bused him to Villahermosa 930 miles (1 500 km).

Mexican National Migration Institute (INM), which was responsible for the flight that took off from Mexico on Sept. 29, with 70 migrants, described it as “voluntary assistance return.”

Norassaint was more interested in returning to Haiti than going back. She lived for 16 years in Dominican Republic, before she settled in Chile in 2018.

He stated, “There is no work, unsafe, there were an earthquake, many people died,” noting that President Jovenel Moise had been assassinated on July 1.

Mexico’s Migration Institute said that it had followed the legal administrative protocols to send people back to Haiti when Norassaint was asked.

MIGRATION POLICY OF “EUPHEMISMS”

Jose Miguel Vivanco is the head of Human Rights Watch in the Americas. He stated in an opinion piece on Sunday that the group had documented instances in which Mexican officials pressured migrants into returning “voluntary”. Vivanco also described the country’s current migration policy as “riddled by euphemisms.”

The migration institute sent another 130 migrants back to Haiti https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-sends-another-130-migrants-haiti-by-plane-2021-10-06 by plane on Wednesday; that flight was not labeled “voluntary.” One man jumped from the steps and ran across the asphalt as he boarded the plane. The video was taken by a migrant rights activist.

Norassaint, who is currently in Miragoane on the coast of Chile, has asked relatives to send him money as he can’t withdraw cash from the Chilean bank account.

He is currently in Mexico with his mother, along with his daughter of 12 years and stepson of 17 years.

Alfred, another passenger on the flight, was also saddened by his sudden deportation from Haiti. Alfred had fled Haiti to Chile and Dominican Republic in 2009.

Although he had hoped to travel to the United States in order to escape Chile’s worsening discrimination, he stayed in Mexico in an effort to stay safe from deportation.

Officials took Alfred away from him as he was about to leave his Ciudad Acuna hotel, where he wanted to get food and supplies for the wife of his second child, two months.

Alfred made it to Mexico following the tips of a WhatsApp group, while his wife flew in an airplane so that she wouldn’t have to cross dangerous jungles between Colombia and Panama.

His wife was heading to Tijuana as her husband was in immigration detention for a week. He was permitted to speak to his spouse during this call.

Alfred stated, “I am about to suffer a heart attack because I think that my wife has left me behind.” “We have been married for ten years. “Look at where she’s now. I’m there.”