The US has taken steps to deport lawful permanent residents after authorities claimed they had supported gangs in Haiti, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Monday.

Rubio said the move would target those who supported and collaborated with Viv Ansanm, the armed alliance that controls most of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, and which President Donald Trump's administration labeled a Foreign Terrorist Organization back in May.

"The United States will not allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of legal status in our country while they are facilitating the actions of violent organizations or supporting criminal terrorist organizations," Rubio said.

Haiti has seen spiraling gang violence after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, with almost 5,000 people killed between October 2024 and June 2025 and many more displaced, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Prominent Haitian arrested in Miami

No individuals were named in Rubio's statement on Monday.

But the announcement came as the Associated Press reported that federal agents had arrested prominent Haitian businessman, doctor and former presidential hopeful Pierre Reginald Boulos in Miami.

Boulos was born in the US but renounced his citizenship in order to run for president in Haiti.

Late last week, he was reportedly taken to Krome North Service Processing Center in Florida, a detention center that Human Rights Watch said in a recent report is one of three in the state that "flagrantly violate international human rights standards."

Neither US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) nor an attorney for Boulos immediately clarified why he was arrested.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru