A Persecuted Father Deported to Haiti Fights to Reunite With His Family in US

Whatever else the story of Haitian asylum seekers Daniel and Rodeline is — an epic quest or near Job-ian test of faith — it’s also a love story.

They met at Daniel’s cousin’s place in Rio de Janeiro seven years ago. Separately, at their parents’ urging, they’d both fled for their lives from Haiti to Brazil. Rodeline says Brazil is “a beautiful country, but there’s no work.” Unable to support herself, she was trapped in escalating domestic violence. Daniel would sometimes visit his cousin, a close friend of Rodeline’s, and he’d hear them talking about her increasingly dangerous living situation. He helped her escape all of that and helped to heal her.

Rodeline, Daniel and Jeanine, a 5-year-old girl, left Brazil in the spring 2021. They traveled by foot, bus, and taxi to Central America. While Daniel raised funds to make their safe crossing to America, Rodeline was stranded in Honduras. Rodeline claims she experienced extreme anti-Black racism and was worried about her baby’s safety. The couple made a hard decision. Daniel would stay behind to work and Jeanine and Rodeline would go on without him. He followed his mother in September, after which he crossed the border in a caravan with their daughter.

This Valentine’s Day, the first since they married and started a family, they were separated. Daniel is a fugitive. He is hiding and running after being wrongly sent to Haiti by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on December 21, 2021. Rodeline and Jeanine, as well as baby Liam Daniel, remain in Texas, where they are safe for now. Daniel was however sent back to Haiti on one the 198 flights that were made under the Biden administration. Since February 1, 2021, around 20,100 Haitians have been deported.

In an email Truthout, Nicole Phillips, legal director of Haitian Bridge Alliance wrote that, “The vast majority of these migrants were deported under Title 42, which means that they were expelled without the opportunity to seek asylum protection in violation of U.S. obligations of non-refoulement.”

International law on human rights non-refoulement is the principle that says people are not to be returned to a country where they’d face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm. On February 16, the United States sent 14 senators and 88 representatives. wrotePresident Biden urges a halt in the expulsions from Haiti. The meticulously researched letter outlines the U.S. treatment for Black migrants from Haiti over the past 20 years. It is clearly discriminatory. Its closing paragraph denies the continued active use of Title 42 by the Trump administration.

It is time to undo the United States’ draconian immigration policies, particularly policies introduced under the Trump Administration, such as the use of Title 42, that circumvent our humanitarian obligations.

Unmoved, the next day, another Ice flightLaredo (Texas) was the first port of call for Haitian refugees. According to a January 17 email that The Immigration Hub sent to other advocates, the following information was available: TruthoutSome of the 137 Haitians who were not willing passengers returned to their country in shackles. These included 55 children and 31 infants (0-2 year old), some of whom were just days old. These are notoriously dangerous flights.

This huge fleet of ICE flights to Haiti is a great option. 161The Houston ICE office has been overseeing illegally removing Black migrants from the United States for the past five months. This is a consistent practice that does not respect their humanity or afford them their due process. It’s the same office that supervised two improper flights in 2020 to Cameroon, the subject of a new and damning Human Rights Watch reportThis information was released last week. It’s also the same office that gave negative “credible fear” determinations to Mauritanians who fled SlaveryThey were quickly reversed however TruthoutPublished a piece on the subject.

The same office was responsible to deliver Daniel to a new hell.

“I don’t know if I’m a dead man,” Daniel told TruthoutTranslated in Spanish “I don’t know why they did this to me. They knew I had family there, my wife, my children, and my newborn son born in the U.S. So why would they send me back to my death? I don’t know. My wife and children need me.”

Daniel was one of the Haitian men attackedOn September 21, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents were seen lariating. His voice constricts as he recounts the shock of the lariat (a rope that was used as a lasso), landing on his neck a few more times and the deep hurt he felt when he realized who it was and what it was for.

“I don’t like to talk about that day because it’s really unbearable,” he said, “something very ugly that I never thought I would experience. They chased us down like animals, they were trying to trap us like animals on a range.”

Del Rio Customs and Border Protection didn’t respond to a request by press time.

From the border, Daniel was transferred to ICE custody in Mississippi where his “credible fear” interview (CFI) was conducted by an asylum officer from the Houston office. CFI is a meeting between an asylum seeker (with a translator if necessary) and an official from ICE. The asylum requester will explain their fears of persecution and why they are seeking asylum. The official determines if there’s a “significant possibility” that the experience would persuade an immigration court that they’d been persecuted due to race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

Daniel said it was the latter and explained to them why he would not be returned.

A photo of Daniel’s father taken after his deportation to Haiti, which corroborates that after Daniel initially fled Haiti, men working for the Pitit Desalin party severed his arm with a machete in Haiti.
A photo of Daniel’s father taken after his deportation to Haiti, which corroborates that after Daniel initially fled Haiti, men working for the Pitit DesalinParty severed his arm in Haiti with a machete.

In Haiti, Daniel’s father worked for the Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK) as a campaigner, and as a teen, Daniel helped him in his work. Pitit Desalin, a rival party, persecuted the family. Prior to fleeing Haiti, they shot Daniel in the foot, he witnessed his cousin’s execution and was held at gunpoint while forced to watch his sister’s rape. After Daniel fled Haiti, members of Pitit Desalin severed his father’s arm with a machete.

The PHTK, the party of recently assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, is itself deeply implicated in atrocities. But Daniel said that his father wasn’t an ideologue. He was a skilled campaigner, which is a skill that is highly valued in Haiti and could provide a decent living for his family.

“My father had five children and he wanted all of us to go to school. He had to pay for us to go,” Daniel explained. He thinks his family was originally targeted in retribution for Moïse’s successful election. “In America, I want to be a truck driver.”

Houston ICE delivered a negative determination: no credible fear. If a negative determination is made, the migrant is at risk of being deported unless they receive a visa. “Z hold,” which is ICE’s internal designation for a case pending review, in which instance no removal is allowed. Daniel was issued a Z hold. They took him anyway.

Mich González, associate director of advocacy for the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is representing Daniel in his asylum claim. (He’s also established a GoFundMeRodeline and the children were grateful to him. He explained that in October, Daniel was transferred to River Correctional Center in Louisiana, where he fell into a deep depression over his negative CFI and ICE’s refusal to release him to his family, even after Liam Daniel was born. According to González, ICE punished him for not leaving his cell for recreation time by confining him for three days in punitive solitary confinement in a freezing cell (that had two A/C units) wearing nothing but a medical gown. There was no sink or shower or clean drinking water in the cell — he was unable to clean himself the entire time.

ICE did no respond to a press request for comment.

Daniel claims that he had a heated verbal exchange with a prison guard after that.

Out of frustration, Daniel told a guard in Spanish, “You know, when I get out of here, I’m going to get in front of a camera and tell the public how you people treat us because this cannot stand.” And according to Daniel, the guard laughed in his face and said, “Yeah, if you ever get out of here, because you’re just going to get deported. Your only option is to get deported.”

He was correct. But so is Daniel — his fears were indeed credible. Someone from Pitit Desalin spotted him almost right away, and he’s got a bright bold target on his back. González has sent multiple emails to the Houston Asylum Office, pleading for his client’s right to return to his family in the U.S. before something terrible happens, or more terrible than the terrible things that have already happened.

González told the asylum office that on January 11, men working for the Pitit Desalin party beat Daniel with metal batons and wooden sticks, leaving him covered in bruises and a cut in his mouth. Daniel was hiding in the home of a family friend when he was attacked by Pitit Desalin party members on January 11.The home. While in the toilet, he heard men asking where he was at the main house. He then heard piercing sounds and fled to the back. The next day, his friend sent him photos — they’d set the owner of the house on fire. (González provided disturbing and graphic photographic evidence of the bruises, mouth, and burn wounds, which are documented, with a trigger warning, here, here and here.)

Daniel's family home in Haiti riddled with bullet holes.
Daniel’s family home in Haiti riddled with bullet holes.

Daniel sent González photos of bullets fired into the walls of his dwellings and audio clips of shots being fired; and he told him that he’s terrified of being gunned down.

“It’s one of the strongest cases I’ve ever seen,” González said. “It’s a straightforward political opinion case. He doesn’t have any bars to asylum, he has no prior immigration history [in the U.S.], no criminal history. It’s just absolutely absurd that this is someone who was given a negative CFI and then immediately upon deportation, faces renewed persecution. It just goes to show how clear-cut of a case it is.”

In Texas, Rodeline, who is fluent in Spanish, Haitian Creole, French and Portuguese, has learned to say a few phrases in English: “Good morning,” “good afternoon” and “good evening.” Jeanine has already learned to say all the colors in English and to count to a hundred and will soon be starting school. Rodeline works at a daycare center, and her children are there with her. On her breaks, Rodeline breastfeeds baby Liam Daniel. She’s grateful they’re safe, the baby is thriving and they’re finding community. But there’s an emptiness where her husband is supposed to be.

“It feels like my relationship with Daniel has been destined in some ways, our fates have been so intertwined,” Rodeline told TruthoutTranslated in Spanish “It’s been beautiful, but so tragic. I hoped we would see a new chapter in America. I still hope for that. I’m counting the days and hours, minutes and seconds until we’ll be together again.”

Daniel is determined to flee Haiti. He’s motivated by the belief that his children deserve the protection and nurturance of both their mother and their father.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “I’m going to get home to my family no matter what.”

To protect Daniel, Rodeline Jeanine Retaliation is not permitted TruthoutThis report does not include full names. It also includes other potentially identifying details.