Latest news with #ToussaintLouvertureInternationalAirport
Miami Herald
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
After labeling transfers to Guantánamo as ‘fake news,' Trump deports Haitians from there
Only days after Trump administration officials denied plans to transfer undocumented migrants to an American naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before deporting them, a U.S. military plane flew 20 Haitians from the military installation to Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. While 11 of the migrants who landed back in Haiti's gang-controlled capital had been picked up at sea near The Bahamas while reportedly en route to Florida, nine others had been transferred to Guantánamo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in the United States, two sources told the Miami Herald. 'Some said they had been in two [detention] facilities in a week,' a Haitian official told the Miami Herald after confirming the U.S. military flight's quiet arrival in the Caribbean nation. The aircraft landed at 12:05 p.m. Tuesday at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Haiti's capital, where armed gangs control most of the roads in the surrounding area and the metropolitan area was plunged into blackout hours later after the main Péligre hydroelectric power plant was forced to shut down by protests. Deemed too dangerous for U.S. citizens, the airport has been off limits to U.S. commercial and cargo flights since November, when gangs opened fire on Spirit Airlines and also hit JetBlue Airways and American Airlines with bullets, forcing the Federal Aviation Administration to issue an ongoing ban. The Trump administration has scheduled the repatriation of another 61 Haitians back to the country on Wednesday. That flight is going to land in Cap-Haïtien, according to a source with knowledge of the plans. With the only international airport accessible to the outside world, Cap-Haïtien has received an average of one U.S. deportation flight a month. Tens of thousands of Haitians have also been deported home from the neighboring Dominican Republic. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to Miami Herald questions about why the Haitian migrants were transferred from the United States to the naval base in Cuba. Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt labeled reports that the administration planned to send thousands of migrants, including nationals from Western European countries, to the controversial detention facility at Guantánamo Bay as 'fake news.' 'Not happening,' Leavitt posted on X. Guantánamo Bay, which has a prison for suspected terrorists tied to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has long had a facility to house migrants, mostly Cubans and Haitians picked up at sea while their asylum claims are heard or they are resettled in a third country. But one of President Donald Trump's first official acts upon returning to the White House earlier this year was ordering officials to prepare Guantánamo to hold as many as 30,000 migrants. Trump's directive marked a dramatic expansion of the facility's use for immigration enforcement as part of his mass deportation campaign. In February, the administration sent more than 150 Venezuelans to Guantánamo before deporting them back to their home country. At the time, advocates and lawyers raised alarms that jailing them there was inhumane and violated the immigrants' constitutional rights. The following month, an undisclosed number of migrants at the facility were then transferred to a detention center in Louisiana. In recent weeks, top White House adviser Stephen Miller has put pressure on immigration officials to ramp up immigrant detentions to 3,000 a day —a goal that is likely to overcrowd already full detention centers. Guerline Jozef, executive director of the San Diego-based Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the transfer of Haitian nationals to Guantánamo Bay was 'covert' and their deportation from the base 'is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is a flagrant violation of international human rights and civil liberties. 'Guantánamo is a black site designed for secrecy and exclusion. Haitian immigrants—and asylum seekers—are once again being subjected to the same cruel, barbaric and inhumane treatment they were subjected in the 1990s, held without access to counsel, without notice to their families or legal advocates and deported under the cover of darkness,' Jozef said. 'These individuals have been stripped of their most basic rights under U.S. and international law.' Jozef, who lobbied against such a plan during the Biden administration and denounced the Trump administration's directive in January, said she and other advocates 'are deeply familiar with Guantánamo protocols. This is not how immigration detention is supposed to work. The decision to disappear Haitians and others into this military pipeline reveals the racialized logic of U.S. immigration enforcement. We cannot allow a system built for indefinite detention and torture to become the new front line of migrant removal. This is a human rights emergency and a moral disgrace.' For Haitians, the infamous military base in Cuba has a troubled history. About 34,000 Haitians were detained at the base in the early 1990s after the Haitian military led a coup against the country's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The Haitians were detained at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard while trying to reach Florida in makeshift boats. At the base, they were held behind barbed wire fencing where, along with similarly detained Cuban refugees, they were subjected to inhumane conditions. The base was finally ordered closed in 1993 after a federal court ruling found that the government had unlawfully held migrants at the offshore detention center. Despite the court order, the U.S. maintained its right to hold refugees at the base and has long operated a migrant facility there where individuals picked up at sea and who claim fear of persecution in their home countries are taken for interviews.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
JetBlue Airways won't be returning to Haiti in April, cites ongoing civil unrest
JetBlue Airways is extending its suspension of flights into Haiti's main international airport in Port-au-Prince. Flights will remain suspended until at least June 11, a spokesman told the Miami Herald. The U.S. carrier operates the only direct flights between Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince and South Florida and New York. Citing Haiti's ongoing civil unrest, the airline previously announced that all of its flights into Haiti would remain suspended through at least April 30. 'Our top priority remains the safety and well-being of our customers and crew members,' the spokesman said. 'Due to the ongoing civil unrest in Haiti, we have made the decision to suspend all flights to and from the country through at least June 11, 2025. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and update our plans as necessary.' The suspension announcement comes exactly one week before the Federal Aviation Administration ban on U.S. commercial and cargo airlines is set to expire on March 12, and on the same day that Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council announced that the domestic airport in the southwestern city of Les Cayes is now capable of receiving international flights. The runway was extended to 5,905 feet from the original 4,265. The opening, along with the recent inauguration of a major port in Les Cayes, is being hailed as a major step forward for the development of the s\South, which remains cut off from the capital by criminal gangs that are in control of all the major highways out of Port-au-Prince. Haitian authorities have spent weeks completing renovations on the runway at the Antoine Simon Airport in the coastal city in order \ to be able to receive international jetliners. A similar renovation effort was also done at the smaller airport in the southeastern city of Jacmel in January ahead of a visit by Colombian President Gustavo Petro. The renovations come amid the ongoing ban of U.S. commercial flights at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince. The airport itself remains open, having recently received deployments of foreign troops and equipment for the Kenya-led multinational security mission. But the airport has been off limits to international commercial flights since criminal gangs opened fire on three U.S. jetliners on Nov. 11 of last year. No passengers were injured, but a Spirit Airlines flight attendant was hurt. The country's local carrier, Sunrise Airways, also has yet to resume flight operations from Toussaint Louverture. Jetblue Airways is one of three U.S. carriers that offered daily flights to Haiti before the attack by criminal gangs prompted the the FAA to issue a ban on all U.S. commercial and cargo airlines into Port-au-Prince. In the weeks that followed, American Airlines, which flew directly out of Miami International Airport, announced the indefinite suspension of its daily service into Toussaint Louverture. Spirit Airlines, the only U.S.-based carrier that connected Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport with Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien's Hugo Chavez International Airport, also suspended all of its Haiti flight operations. The airline, according to a source, is looking to restart its Cap-Haïtien service pending an assessment by the Transportation Security Administration, which recently traveled to Haiti for a safety evaluation. Earlier this week, Dennis Hankins, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, met with the new director of Haiti's airport authority, Réginald Guignard, to discuss efforts to secure the perimeter of the airport. Increasing the security around the airport is a top pre-requisite for the resumption of international flights. For now, the Cap-Haïtien international airport is the only way in and out Haiti via Sunrise Airways service into Miami, and flights being operated by airlines between Haiti and The Bahamas, and the Turk and Caicos.
Miami Herald
06-03-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
JetBlue Airways won't be returning to Haiti in April, cites ongoing civil unrest
JetBlue Airways is extending its suspension of flights into Haiti's main international airport in Port-au-Prince. Flights will remain suspended until at least June 11, a spokesman told the Miami Herald. The U.S. carrier operates the only direct flights between Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince and South Florida and New York. Citing Haiti's ongoing civil unrest, the airline previously announced that all of its flights into Haiti would remain suspended through at least April 30. 'Our top priority remains the safety and well-being of our customers and crew members,' the spokesman said. 'Due to the ongoing civil unrest in Haiti, we have made the decision to suspend all flights to and from the country through at least June 11, 2025. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and update our plans as necessary.' The suspension announcement comes exactly one week before the Federal Aviation Administration ban on U.S. commercial and cargo airlines is set to expire on March 12, and on the same day that Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council announced that the domestic airport in the southwestern city of Les Cayes is now capable of receiving international flights. The runway was extended to 5,905 feet from the original 4,265. The opening, along with the recent inauguration of a major port in Les Cayes, is being hailed as a major step forward for the development of the s\South, which remains cut off from the capital by criminal gangs that are in control of all the major highways out of Port-au-Prince. Haitian authorities have spent weeks completing renovations on the runway at the Antoine Simon Airport in the coastal city in order \ to be able to receive international jetliners. A similar renovation effort was also done at the smaller airport in the southeastern city of Jacmel in January ahead of a visit by Colombian President Gustavo Petro. The renovations come amid the ongoing ban of U.S. commercial flights at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince. The airport itself remains open, having recently received deployments of foreign troops and equipment for the Kenya-led multinational security mission. But the airport has been off limits to international commercial flights since criminal gangs opened fire on three U.S. jetliners on Nov. 11 of last year. No passengers were injured, but a Spirit Airlines flight attendant was hurt. The country's local carrier, Sunrise Airways, also has yet to resume flight operations from Toussaint Louverture. Jetblue Airways is one of three U.S. carriers that offered daily flights to Haiti before the attack by criminal gangs prompted the the FAA to issue a ban on all U.S. commercial and cargo airlines into Port-au-Prince. In the weeks that followed, American Airlines, which flew directly out of Miami International Airport, announced the indefinite suspension of its daily service into Toussaint Louverture. Spirit Airlines, the only U.S.-based carrier that connected Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport with Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien's Hugo Chavez International Airport, also suspended all of its Haiti flight operations. The airline, according to a source, is looking to restart its Cap-Haïtien service pending an assessment by the Transportation Security Administration, which recently traveled to Haiti for a safety evaluation. Earlier this week, Dennis Hankins, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, met with the new director of Haiti's airport authority, Réginald Guignard, to discuss efforts to secure the perimeter of the airport. Increasing the security around the airport is a top pre-requisite for the resumption of international flights. For now, the Cap-Haïtien international airport is the only way in and out Haiti via Sunrise Airways service into Miami, and flights being operated by airlines between Haiti and The Bahamas, and the Turk and Caicos.
