Wisteguens Jean Quely Charles, the Haitian illegal immigrant and gang member who went viral shouting "Biden forever" while being arrested by ICE in January 2025, has been deported to Haiti, 19 months after he swore on camera he would never go back.

Charles left the United States on an ICE flight originating in Louisiana, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Thursday. The deportation caps a case that began with a defiant, profanity-laced outburst captured by Fox News cameras and ended with federal officers putting Charles on a plane to the country he vowed he'd never see again. DHS identified Charles as a member of the Back Block Money Gang with 17 criminal convictions to his name.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin did not hold back. In a statement provided to Fox News, Mullin laid out the administration's position plainly:

"This illegal alien gang member from Haiti had quite the rap sheet. Once again: if you're here illegally, we will find you, arrest you, and remove you from the United States of America."

The White House piled on separately. Spokeswoman Lauren Bis tied Charles directly to the immigration policies of previous administrations, telling Fox News:

"This gang member and criminal illegal alien loved Obama, Biden, and open-border Democrats who let him enter our country with TPS and allowed him to terrorize American citizens. Thanks to the Trump administration, he is now off our streets and back in Haiti."

From TPS to 17 convictions: how Charles stayed in the country for over a decade

Charles first received Temporary Protected Status, a federal designation that shields nationals from countries facing armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary conditions, during the Obama administration in February 2013. He was admitted to the United States in July of that year. TPS was designed as a temporary humanitarian measure, but Charles remained in the country for nearly a decade before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services finally terminated his protected status in July 2022.

By that point, Charles had racked up a long criminal record. DHS listed convictions for assault and battery on a public employee, resisting arrest, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, possession of controlled substances, carrying a dangerous weapon, carrying ammunition without a firearm identification card, and trespassing. The agency put the total at 17 convictions, though only eight offense categories were specified publicly.

The Supreme Court's decision to greenlight the end of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian migrants provided the broader legal backdrop for cases like Charles's. His TPS termination in 2022 left him without lawful immigration status, and with a criminal record that made any path to legal residency virtually impossible.

Yet Charles remained in the country for more than two years after losing his protected status. No explanation appears in the public record for why removal proceedings were not initiated sooner.

January 2025: the arrest that went viral

On January 22, 2025, just days after President Trump returned to the White House, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers arrested Charles in Massachusetts. Fox News cameras were on scene, and the footage spread fast.

Charles was combative and loud. He told officers, "I'm not going back to Haiti... you feel me?" He shouted "F--- Trump", using the full profanity, and declared, "Biden forever bro." The clip became one of the most widely shared pieces of immigration enforcement footage in the early weeks of the new administration.

The arrest came as ICE was setting arrest records month after month, with the agency shifting to aggressive street-level operations across the country. Charles's defiant on-camera performance made him a symbol, to the administration's critics, of heavy-handed enforcement; to its supporters, of exactly the kind of illegal immigrant the system had failed to remove for years.

Nineteen months in custody before a judge ordered removal

Charles spent roughly 19 months in federal custody while his immigration case wound through the system. A Department of Justice immigration judge issued a final order of removal on November 7, 2025, more than ten months after the arrest. The deportation itself did not come until months later, when Charles was placed on the ICE flight from Louisiana to Haiti.

Fox News sources, not identified by name or agency, said Charles was "extremely combative" aboard the deportation aircraft and made crude, profane, and threatening remarks about President Trump and his family during the flight. DHS did not publicly confirm those details.

An exclusive photo obtained by Fox News from an ICE source showed Charles aboard the plane. The image was not among the photos officially released by DHS, raising questions about how and why it was provided separately.

DHS marked the occasion on social media with what Fox News described as a tongue-in-cheek photo of President Trump at his viral McDonald's campaign trail stop, waving goodbye. The post accompanied the official deportation announcement.

'Biden forever bro', and then the plane to Port-au-Prince

The gap between Charles's words and his outcome tells the story the administration wants told. He shouted "I'm not going back to Haiti" on camera. He praised Biden. He cursed Trump. Nineteen months later, he was on a government plane headed to the country he said he'd never return to, removed under the president he publicly despised.

The New York Post reported that Charles's case had become a symbolic example of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement push, a high-profile deportation that officials could point to as proof of follow-through.

And the timeline raises a fair question that neither DHS nor the White House addressed: why did it take so long? Charles lost his TPS in July 2022. He was not arrested until January 2025. He was not ordered removed until November 2025. He was not deported until 2026. A man with 17 criminal convictions and no legal immigration status lived freely in the United States for more than two and a half years after his protected status ended.

That delay did not happen under one administration alone. USCIS terminated Charles's TPS under Biden in 2022, but no arrest followed for nearly three years. The enforcement action came only after the change in administration, and only after ICE began sending deportation flights to Haiti following the formal end of TPS protections.

Charles's criminal record, assault, weapons charges, drug offenses, resisting arrest, spans years of contact with the justice system. At each point, a conviction was entered. At no point before January 2025 did federal immigration authorities act on the obvious: a gang member with no legal status and a lengthening rap sheet was still walking the streets of Massachusetts.

The administration of DHS Secretary Mullin has made a point of publicizing high-profile removals, and Charles's case fits the pattern. The viral video, the defiant quotes, the long criminal history, the Obama-era TPS grant, every element serves the administration's argument that prior leadership let dangerous people stay.

Whether that argument holds up depends on what you think the system should have done between July 2022 and January 2025. The convictions were already on the books. The TPS was already revoked. The man was already here illegally. And nothing happened, until the cameras rolled.

Charles said Biden forever. He got a one-way ticket to Haiti instead. The system that let him stay for a decade deserves at least as much scrutiny as the man it finally removed.