The Trump administration has designated a coalition of Haitian gangs that have involved the Caribbean with massive violence as a terrorist organization, White House officials confirmed to NBC News.
The Viv Ansanm Coalition and Gran Grif Gang will be labelled as foreign terrorist organizations and global terrorists specifically designated by the State Department.
This designation was first reported by the Miami Herald.
The Ministry of Finance also applied the designation to the Glanglyph gang. In October, the gang was responsible for the massacre of at least 115 people in the country town of Pontsondo.
Earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio allowed similar designations of several Mexican cartels and gangs, including the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.
“Entering business with members of these groups requires risks related to counterterrorism authorities, not only for Haitians, but also for legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens,” Rubio said in a statement Friday. “Individuals and entities that provide significant support or resources to VIV Ansanm or Gran Grif may face criminal charges and acceptance or removal from the United States.”
The designation of terrorists for Tren de Aragua and MS-13 is being used as one of the determinants of deporting several US people to Salvador prisons. The move comes as thousands of Haitians living in the US under a protected status program were told they had to leave a few months before their status expires.
According to a fact sheet from the State Department, Glanglyph is the largest gang in the Artibonite region of rural Haiti. The department said the gangs are responsible for 80% of deaths in the area, including this year’s attacks that killed a Kenyan military officer on a mission to provide Haiti’s security.
Viv Ansanm is a gang coalition that has been particularly concentrated in Port-au-Prince, where most of the violence has been concentrated since 2021. According to the State Department, the group coordinated attacks that destabilized critical infrastructure such as prisons, government buildings and major airports.
Rubio told the Herald that the designation is part of America’s responsibility to deal with widespread violence and political upheavals around the country. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment from NBC News.
In addition to the possibility of sending cash to Haitians, Vanda Ferbab Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, who monitors the country’s situation, said the designation could have a social impact on Haitians living here.
Over a million people were exiled by the conflict as violence spread across central Haiti. Instability across the country forced medical facilities to close, resulting in widespread hunger.
Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic and other countries have sent Haitian immigrants back to their home countries despite lamenting that they would stand up to humanitarian concerns from the United Nations, according to Reuters.
