The United States State Department reported that approximately 1,600 Americans in Haiti had reached out for evacuation assistance following the February-March gang offensive that had closed the airport, seized the seaport, and created conditions of extreme danger across the capital. The figure illustrated the scale of the American presence in Haiti — missionaries, NGO workers, business people, dual citizens — and the impact of the security crisis on American nationals living or working in the country.
The evacuation requests came from a diverse population: American missionaries who had been serving Haitian communities for years and found themselves trapped by the airport closure; NGO and humanitarian organization staff who had been unable to evacuate their offices when the situation deteriorated; business people with investments in Haiti who had stayed through previous crises but found the March 2024 situation beyond what they could manage; and Haitian Americans who held US passports and had been visiting family when the crisis escalated.
The State Department worked with the US military and with whatever commercial carriers were maintaining limited Haiti service to assist Americans seeking to leave. The process was complicated by the airport closure and the gang control of roads connecting different parts of the city, requiring helicopter transport in some cases and coordination with gang networks in others to ensure safe passage.
The experience of American nationals trapped in Haiti during the March crisis provided a human-interest dimension to the crisis coverage in American media that statistics about Haitian victims had not consistently produced. Congressional pressure on the Biden administration intensified as constituents with relatives or colleagues in Haiti communicated directly with their representatives about conditions on the ground.