Advocates are appealing to the Biden administration to halt the deportation of asylum-seekers to Haiti, following the devastating 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck the nation on Aug. 14. They said at least two deportation flights expelled migrants to Haiti in the days preceding the earthquake.

“The quake’s death toll continues to climb,” the Welcome With Dignity campaign said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “For the Biden administration to continue returning Haitians to such dire conditions would be unconscionable and a shameful abandonment of our human rights obligations.”

Over 130 organizations had previously called on the Biden administration to cease Immigration and Customs Enforcement-chartered deportation flights to Haiti, following the assassination of the President Jovenel Moïse last month. They noted the Biden administration has used the Stephen Miller-pushed Title 42 anti-asylum policy to expel vulnerable people. But the deportations have continued, with Haitian Bridge Alliance noting in a statement that “approximately 130 individuals, including several children under the age of two-years old,” were deported following his death.

“The country struggles to regain political stability, made apparent yesterday when the judge investigating Moïse’s assassination stepped down after his clerk was murdered,” Haitian Bridge Alliance said in the statement. “Now with widespread structural damage, overcrowded hospitals, and high casualties expected, it would be unconscionable for the Biden administration to continue to deport anyone to Haiti.”

The Biden administration had earlier this year acknowledged ongoing turmoil by redesignating Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) earlier this year. The Miami Herald reports there’s now a push from advocates for the administration to protect more vulnerable people following the earthquake, by further expanding TPS eligibility. The report said an expansion was already done in response to Moïse’s killing—and advocates say this devastating earthquake can and should merit a second one.

“In response to today’s catastrophe, we are urgently calling Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden administration to once again extend the new TPS designation date for Haiti to benefit more Haitians currently residing in the United States,” National TPS Alliance lead organizer Paul-Andre Mondesir said, according to the report.

“It is unconscionable for the U.S. government to forcibly remove anyone to Haiti right now,” Center for Gender and Refugee Studies legal director Blain Bookey said in the statement received by Daily Kos. “Even before the latest earthquake, the country was experiencing high levels of insecurity culminating in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse just weeks ago.” In a letter earlier this summer urging the administration to return unjustly deported immigrants, lawmakers with the Congressional Black Caucus noted that Black immigrants make up 20% of deportations despite representing 7% of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Following the racist violence of the past four years in a particular, the Biden administration must chart a more compassionate path when it comes to immigration and our asylum system. It can begin to do that in part by finally ending the unsound Title 42 policy and protecting, not deporting, Haitians. “How can the U.S. government deport anyone to Haiti right now?” asked Haitian Bridge Alliance executive director Guerline Jozef. “How do they think so little of Haitian lives, deporting children and babies in the middle of the chaos?”