Haitian Migrant Paroled Under Biden Charged With Raping Two Women in Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City Police arrested Moise Sainteran, an illegal alien from Haiti, on charges of rape, forcible sexual abuse, object rape, aggravated sexual assault, and forcible sodomy tied to two separate attacks on two different women, according to Breitbart News.

Police say the first incident happened July 18. Sainteran allegedly brought a woman back to his apartment after a night at several bars, and she told police he raped her there.

The second alleged attack happened August 1. A different woman told police she fell asleep at Sainteran's apartment and woke up to him raping her.

ICE officials said Tuesday that Sainteran entered the United States in September 2023 through the Biden administration's parole program for Haitian migrants. That program let Haitians enter the country temporarily without a visa, provided they had a U.S.-based sponsor. Sainteran's authorized stay was set to expire in June 2025.

In December 2023, the Biden administration issued Sainteran a work permit allowing him to hold a job in the U.S. That permit came roughly three months after his parole began.

The Trump administration terminated the Haitian parole pipeline in April 2025, more than a year before this article. According to DHS, that action stripped Sainteran of any legal status, making him an illegal alien at the time of the alleged assaults.

A DHS spokesperson said in a statement cited by Breitbart: "This illegal alien has been charged with sexually assaulting two women. He was paroled into our country by the Biden Administration's Haitian parole program, which the Trump Administration ended last year. ICE is asking officials in Salt Lake County to not release this criminal from jail, and to turn him over to ICE custody so we can remove him from our country."

Charges vs. conviction

Sainteran has been charged, not convicted. The rape, object rape, aggravated sexual assault, forcible sodomy, and forcible sexual abuse charges are allegations at this stage, and he is entitled to a presumption of innocence until a court says otherwise. No trial date has been reported.

It is a documented fact, not in dispute, that Sainteran arrived through the Biden-era Haitian parole program in September 2023 and that the Trump administration ended that program in April 2025. It's also documented that his authorized parole period was set to run through June 2025 regardless, meaning his legal status was time-limited even under the original terms of the program.

The parole program itself

The Biden administration's Haitian parole initiative, along with similar programs for Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals, let people from those countries fly into the U.S. and stay temporarily if they passed background checks and had an American sponsor willing to provide financial support. Supporters of the program argued it reduced dangerous border crossings by giving migrants a legal, vetted alternative. Critics, including many Republican lawmakers, argued it lacked adequate vetting capacity and created a large population of people whose legal status was inherently temporary and precarious.

This case does not, by itself, prove the program was poorly vetted. Sainteran passed whatever screening existed in September 2023, and nothing in the current charges indicates a criminal record predating his arrival. The question raised by DHS is a narrower one: what happens to people in these programs once the program ends and their status lapses, and whether local jurisdictions cooperate with ICE detainer requests in the meantime.

The jail cooperation fight

ICE's public ask, that Salt Lake County not release Sainteran and instead hand him to federal custody, points to a recurring friction point between federal immigration enforcement and local jails. Utah is not a self-declared sanctuary state, but individual county practices on honoring ICE detainer requests vary and have been the subject of litigation nationally for years, largely over whether holding someone solely on a civil immigration detainer without a judicial warrant is constitutional.

No indication has been given yet of whether Salt Lake County will comply with ICE's request. That decision, and the outcome of the criminal case itself, are the two concrete developments to watch.