The U.S. State Department on Sunday announced the revocation of visas for two members of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) due to their “involvement in the operation of gangs and other criminal organizations in Haiti.”
The State Department said these two members of the TPC interfered with “the Government of Haiti’s efforts to counter gangs designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the United States.”
“The Haitian people have had enough with gang violence, destruction, and political infighting. The Trump Administration will promote accountability for those who continue to destabilize Haiti and the region,” the State Department promised.
The statement did not name the two individuals in question or specify which of Haiti’s many gangs they were allegedly involved with.
Haiti has been overrun by gangs since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021. Prime Minister Ariel Henry took power after Moise was killed, but much of the public saw him as an illegitimate leader. The gangs drove him out of Haiti in March 2024 and he resigned from the office a month later.
Haiti has been administered by the TPC ever since, and it has been a turbulent reign. On Friday, the TPC voted to fire the current prime minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aime, even though the TPC is supposed to step down in two weeks.
The U.S. State Department was deeply disappointed with the move, warning that Haiti needs “consistent, strong leadership” that has “the full support of the Haitian people” in order to prevail over gang violence.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Didier by phone on Friday to offer his support. The State Department said Rubio made it clear that the TPC “must be dissolved by February 7 without corrupt actors seeking to interfere in Haiti’s path to elected governance for their own gains.”
“Haiti’s leader must choose Haiti’s stability. The United States will ensure there is a steep cost for corrupt politicians who support vicious gangs and wreak terrorism on Haiti,” the State Department warned on Friday – a warning it appears to have followed up on by revoking the visas for two TPC members on Sunday.
“To the corrupt politicians supporting vicious gangs and who are wreaking terrorism on the country: the United States will ensure there is a steep cost,” the State Department said in an even more pointed warning via social media platform X on Thursday.
The Miami Herald offered some more clues as to why the State Department revoked those visas:
In the last 24 hours, some council members have been attempting to use their vote as leverage with the prime minister, while a well-known gang figure posted a video on TikTok voicing support for the council. Also on Sunday afternoon, two Brazil-bound charter airplanes were hit with gunfire as they approached the runway at Toussaint Louverturre International Airport from Croix-des-Bouquets, east of Port-au-Prince, a source confirmed. No one was hurt.
TPC member Leslie Voltaire was defiant at the news conference where Didier’s sacking was announced, saying that the council wants to put a “good team” in place before it steps down in February – and if Haiti’s political system cannot produce “the best of the best,” then “we will come up with a solution,” without foreign interference.
“Everyone is looking for a Haitian solution to the crisis, but when we start to find a Haitian solution to the crisis, the international community comes in with all its claws,” he complained.
The TPC has nine members, seven of them with voting powers, but only one other was present beside Voltaire at the press conference that announced Didier’s firing. The council was established under the Biden administration at the urging of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who thought it was the only way to ensure Haiti would resume holding elections on a reasonable timetable. The TPC was resisted by many of Haiti’s political factions, who viewed it as a heavy-handed U.S. attempt to control Haiti’s politics. Haiti’s gang warlords threatened violence against anyone who cooperated with the TPC.
Some sort of power struggle seemed to be occurring in the TPC last week, but the council made no public statements about it, nor about why it seemed to be increasingly at odds with the prime minister. Some observers suspected the council would fire the prime minister — as it did indeed do on Friday — in a bid to extend its power after February 7.
The gangs have, if anything, increased their power over Haiti over the past two years. Gang warlords now control about 90% of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, and they have captured growing swathes of rural territory. The murder rate rose almost 20% in 2025 over its already horrifying levels in 2024.
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