By Nelson A. King
CALIFORNIA, Nov 2026, CMC – The California-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) has strongly condemned the Trump administration’s decision to take an eight-year-old Haitian boy into federal custody during a routine Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) check-in, separating him from his loved ones, school and community.
HBA executive director, Guerline Jozef, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that the third-grade student at Fay Elementary School in San Diego had been living with his loved ones following his father’s deportation by the government in 2025.
“Despite the fact that he followed all the rules and appeared for a scheduled immigration appointment that was sent to him, the child was taken into custody and subsequently transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, leaving his cousins in tears,” Jozef said.
“It is important to note that when parents are taken into custody by ICE, they are not provided an opportunity to return home to see their children or to be able to transfer guardianship; ICE just incarcerated then deported without taking into account the wellbeing of the children left behind,” she said adding “this is what we call ‘Orphans by deportation’”.
Jozef said San Diego Unified School District officials have raised “serious concerns about the devastating impact of immigration enforcement on children, including psychological trauma, educational disruption, and fear within school communities.
“Crisis counselors have been deployed to support students affected by their classmate’s disappearance. This is not child protection. This is state-inflicted trauma disguised as immigration enforcement.
“An eight-year-old child should be sitting in a classroom, learning, playing, and dreaming about his future, not being taken away and retraumatized by armed federal agents,” Jozef added.
She said his father has already been taken from him and deported and now this administration has stripped him of the stability, family, and community every child deserves.
“When a government’s immigration policies leave children traumatised and classmates afraid, we have crossed an extremely dangerous moral line. Black immigrant children are not invisible or disposable. We refuse to normalise this cruelty. No child should become a casualty of an immigration system that has abandoned compassion and humanity.”
Jozef said HBA has been “sounding the alarm on the terror that children and parents have been going through and will continue to stand alongside them, providing support and advocating tirelessly until the eight-year-old child is safely reunited with his loved ones here in San Diego.
“HBA calls on federal authorities to facilitate his immediate reunification with his loved ones, ensure his safety and well-being, and provide full transparency regarding his circumstances.
“HBA further urges Congress to investigate this incident and calls on the Trump administration to restore Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for Haitian families as Haiti continues to grapple with extreme conditions.”
HBA is also strongly condemning the reported deportation of 140 Haitians from the United States on October. 29.
Jozef said the deportations came as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has deployed thousands of soldiers to Haiti, alongside ongoing operations involving Erik Prince’s private security firm and the United Nations-authorized, US-supported Gang Suppression Force (GSF).
She said nearly 1.5 million people are internally displaced in Haiti, “where armed groups continue to perpetrate killings, kidnappings, sexual violence and attacks against civilians.
“Despite these conditions, the Trump administration terminated Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status and employment authorization designation effective July 27, 2026, jeopardising protections for more than 300,000 Haitian nationals living in the United States and who have contributed to our nation’s economy.
“The United States cannot acknowledge that Haiti requires thousands of foreign troops, private military contractors and an internationally authorized security force to confront an unprecedented security emergency, while simultaneously pretending that Haiti is safe enough to receive deportees.
“This is not simply a contradiction in American foreign policy; it is a profound failure of moral leadership and human responsibility These are human beings, not numbers on a deportation manifest. They are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters being returned to a country where even heavily armed international forces are struggling to operate safely.
“We cannot claim to be restoring security in Haiti while knowingly placing Haitian lives in danger. The United States must immediately halt these deportations,” Jozef said, noting that in April this year, the US House of Representatives passed TPS protections for Haitian nationals under the leadership of Massachusetts Democratic Congresswoman Ayana Pressley, with bipartisan support.
Jozef said US Senators Edward Markey and Lisa Blunt Rochester subsequently introduced S. 4814 – legislation to provide renewed TPS protections for Haitians, which currently has 46 cosponsors.
“Despite these efforts, the Senate has yet to enact legislation safeguarding Haitian families from deportation,” she said, urging the US Senate to immediately pass legislation restoring TPS protections for Haitian nationals and called on the US Department of Homeland Security to suspend all deportations to Haiti and other countries facing humanitarian and insecurity crises.
“The United States must uphold its domestic and international legal obligations, including protections against returning individuals to persecution, torture, or other qualifying serious harm.
“The Trump administration cannot credibly deny the dangers facing Haitian nationals when its own government has repeatedly acknowledged those very risks.”
The HBA executive director said the US Department of State “maintains its level 4 travel warning for Haiti, Do Not Travel; restricts the movement of American diplomatic personnel; and acknowledges widespread killings, kidnappings and armed violence.”
Jozef said US federal aviation restrictions “further underscore the severity of the security crisis.
“Yet, Haitian nationals continue to face deportation to the same country the United States warns its own citizens not to enter. If Haiti is too dangerous for American citizens and diplomatic personnel, the administration must explain why it continues to send Haitian families into those same conditions,” she added.
Jozef said the Trump administration, “through its own actions on the international stage”, in September 2025, co-sponsored a United Nations Security Council resolution authorising a multinational force of up to 5,550 personnel to confront escalating gang violence, “which the US will finance.”
She said Haitian officials say they are struggling to accommodate the growing number of individuals deported from the United States under the Trump administration, adding that Haitian authorities are also requesting “additional time and resources to prepare for the anticipated influx of returnees”.
CMC/njjk/ir/2026