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Trump Administration Labels Haitian Gangs As Foreign Terrorist Organizations

The Trump administration labeled Haitian gangs Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif as foreign terrorist organizations on Friday after notifying Congress last month about its intentions.

The move comes after the administration labeled several Latin American gangs, including Tren de Aragua based in Venezuela, as terrorist organizations. The goal was to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a law that gives the president broad powers to detain and deport foreigners, as justification to deport Venezuelans.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly smeared Haitian immigrants on the campaign trail and vowed mass deportations, and it now appears the administration wants to use the law to target them.

A federal judge barred Trump from using the centuries-old law to expel foreign nationals on Thursday. The federal government sent approximately 260 men, the majority of them Venezuelan, to an infamous prison in El Salvador in March. The flights, which were part of a deal with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, took off before any of the men could see a judge, and they spurred a massive legal battle when it was reported that many of the men deported did not have any ties to Latin American gangs.

The situation in Haiti is grim. After President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in 2021 and acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned under pressure in 2024, gang violence escalated dramatically, spreading from the capital city of Port-au-Prince to nearby towns and further out in the countryside.

In response, the Biden administration created a humanitarian parole program for four countries, including Haiti, in which migrants with sponsors could apply to live and work legally in the United States.

It was against this backdrop that Trump began fearmongering about Haitians who had settled in the country through the program, many of them opting to head to smaller, quieter towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, instead of more expensive cities like Miami and New York, where generations of Haitian immigrants have called home.

After a Facebook user last September started a racist lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets, Trump and Vice President JD Vance spread the rumor far and wide and made up new ones, like falsely claiming that Haitians were responsible for a rise in communicable disease. (There was no noticeable increase in disease in Springfield.)

The rumors consumed the town, spurred bomb threats at local schools and spread fear among the Haitian community in Ohio and beyond.