Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declared Syrians and Haitians needed to return to their native land to be repatriated.
He argued that those who no longer have temporary protected status could help by going back to “restore their country.”
Host Jake Tapper said, “You said you’re going to give them a plane ticket if they want to get out and go back to Haiti. How logistically, what had happened? Because the FAA prohibits commercial flights to Port au Prince because of the gunfire from terrorists and gangs. Civil aviation, by the way, is also in Syria.”
Mullin said, “So we have several options for deporting individuals because we have deportation flights where we can’t get into areas where maybe commercial travel can’t go to, so we’d simply book them on a flight. We expect to have some pretty full flights going back to Haiti and going back to some of these countries where TPS has been eliminated. So we’ll provide the travel for them. And, like I said, we’ll give them $2,100 roughly to go back home. We want the individuals to be repatriated to their country. Maybe they can go back there and help restore their country. Syria is a prime example. Syria has come a long way in just a few years. Underneath their new leadership, we truly expect that Syria can be a great country again. But it takes some, it takes the people of Syria to build their country back. The same thing in Haiti. It takes the people of Haiti to win their country back. If we really want those countries to succeed, then they need the best of the best to be back in their country, living there. And, we’re going to assist them in that.”
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