A broad coalition of academic, advocacy, religious, and rights organizations are calling on the Biden administration to expand relief for Haitian migrants and halt all deportations to the country, The Hill reports.

In a letter dated August 27, 344 organizations called on President Joe Biden, secretary of state Antony Blinken, homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Domestic Policy Council director Susan Rice, and national security advisor Jake Sullivan "to immediately halt all deportation and expulsion flights to Haiti; promptly return to the United States any Haitians who were eligible for Temporary Protected Status ('TPS') and wrongly deported since May 21, 2021; explore other avenues of protection for Haitian immigrants including Deferred Enforced Departure ('DED'); expedite the release of Haitians detained in immigration facilities in the United States, Puerto Rico and other territories; and grant humanitarian parole to Haitians at the U.S.-Mexico border."

According to the letter, the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck Haiti on August 14 damaged or destroyed over 122,000 homes, took the lives of more than 2,200 people, and injured another 12,000, the letter states. Even before the earthquake and the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, Haiti was seeing "the worst outbreaks of violence in decades," the letter states, and the administration "rightfully redesignated Haiti for TPS on May 22," yet deportations have continued. After the January 2010 earthquake, the U.S. government halted all deportations for about a year, and the Biden administration should do the same, the signatories argue, and "prioritize humanitarian relief over enforcement, and instruct ICE to immediately suspend deportations and expulsions indefinitely."

Signatories to the letter include ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), the American Friends Service Committee, Caribbean American Diaspora Alliance, Columbia Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic, Haiti Justice Alliance, Haiti Now (Ayiti Now Corp), Human Rights Watch, Make the Road New York, Mijente, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Immigrant Justice Center, Oxfam America, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice Team, Tahirih Justice Center, and Women's Refugee Commission.

"The Biden administration already acknowledged how dire the circumstances were in Haiti prior to the earthquake when it redesignated Haiti for TPS," Gabrielle Apollon, supervising attorney and Haiti Project co-director at the NYU School of Law's Global Justice Clinic, told The Hill. "How can they justify any deportations to Haiti now? Deportations should have been halted since COVID-19 began ravaging our world. Halting deportations to Haiti immediately is the least the Biden administration can do to affirm that Black immigrant lives matter."