PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — After the administration of President Joe Biden deported Maxin Orelien to Haiti in September 2021, he fled the country again the next month.

A construction worker, Orelien had spent about $3,000 traveling to the United States in search of what he called “a better life.” But it was the height of the pandemic, and the Biden administration was expelling new arrivals by the thousands, often in shackles.