Haitian deportees assaulted U.S. pilots and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on deportation flights arriving in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Tuesday, according to a report from NBC News.
NBC News reported the incident began after a flight of single adult men arrived on the tarmac, citing a source familiar with internal reports.
Several of the men then stormed to another flight that recently arrived and was carrying families. On the second flight, the men allegedly attacked pilots of the plane and three ICE officers.
The officers suffered non-life threatening injuries, NBC reported.
A spokesperson for DHS told The Hill in a statement that some adult migrants caused “two separate disruptions” on the tarmac after deplaning in Port-au-Prince. Haitian crowd control officers responded to both incidents and “resolved the situation.”
“ICE fully respects the rights of all people to peacefully express their opinions, while continuing to perform its immigration enforcement mission consistent with our priorities, federal law and agency policy,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson did not give further detail about the “disruptions.”
The incident comes as the U.S. has ramped up deportation flights to Haiti after over 10,000 migrants crowded under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas.
The Biden administration resumed deportation flights last week, sparking backlash from the international community. The optics worsened on Monday after viral footage from the U.S.-Mexico border showed officers on horseback seeking to push Haitians back across the border.
Despite the backlash, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told a Senate panel on Tuesday that there were no plans to cease flights.
“We are increasing the frequency and number of the repatriation flights each day,” Mayorkas said. “And we’re hoping that what we are doing now serves as a deterrent because it backs up the words that we have spoken since the very outset: that irregular migration is not the way to enter the United States. It will not work.”