Two years after 40-year-old financial consultant, Paul Pierrilus, was deported to Haiti, lawyers and rights activists in the United States continue to fight to overturn the deportation order.

United States authorities two years ago deported Mr Pierrilus to Haiti, a country where he has never been.

Mr Pierrilus was charged for possession and distribution of cocaine in his early twenties and had since been released and managed to put off deportation because he was not a flight risk nor a threat to the community.

He even went on to become a financial consultant until February 2021, when he was deported without warning.

Born in St. Martin to Haitian parents, Mr Pierrilus migrated to the U.S. when he was five years old.

Former Haitian ambassador Harve Denis verified that Mr Pierrilus is not a citizen of Haiti and that his birth in St. Martin did not immediately make him a citizen there either, according to copies of communications provided by Mr Pierrilus’ sister Neomie Pierrilus.

Notwithstanding his “statelessness,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned Mr Pierrilus to Haiti, where he has been battling for survival in a violent, insecure nation he had never been to and whose language and culture he could not understand.

“My brother has never even been to Haiti. He has the bare minimum of the language, he doesn’t know the culture, he doesn’t know anyone there. So my brother cannot go there,” Ms Pierrilus explained.

Lawyers and activists are, however, fighting this deportation order, citing his statelessness and the continuing chaos in Haiti.

The Board of Immigration Appeal, however, countered saying that “it is not necessary for the respondent to be a citizen of Haiti for that country to be named as the country of removal.”