The United States deported more than 160 people to Haiti on Thursday for the first time since the Trump administration won a legal battle to end Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Haitians.
The plane landed in the northern Haitian city of Cap-Haïtien because the main international airport in Port-au-Prince is considered too dangerous. The US government currently has a ban on US commercial flights to Haiti’s capital through early September because of ongoing gang violence.
The deportees were clad in white, and many covered their faces out of safety as journalists filmed their arrival. Nearly all declined to talk, with some fearing being targeted by gangs that control an estimated 70% of Port-au-Prince and swaths of land beyond.
Who Was Deported
The deportees included TPS holders and Haitians who had served prison sentences, said Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti’s National Office of Migration.
“It is not the Haitian state that asks for them to be sent back,” he said. “Our mission is to welcome migrants of forced return.”
Delva noted that some of the deportees were not born in Haiti, although they are of Haitian descent. One deportee said he was born in the Dominican Republic and knew nothing about Haiti.
Immigration officials in Haiti offered deportees a maximum of $65 and something to drink and eat.
The Journey Home
Several deportees planned to travel to Haiti’s southern region, a dangerous journey because gangs control the main routes leading to that area and are known to randomly open fire on vehicles passing through. Others are going to Haiti’s western region.
“Those who cannot reach their homes today, we will host them in secure spaces and the next day the process will continue until all migrants return home as they should,” Delva said.
The TPS Termination
In late June, the US Supreme Court allowed the TPS program to end, affecting some 1 million people from more than a dozen countries. On Aug. 5, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., lifted an order preventing deportations of Haitians on Temporary Protected Status.
Activists have warned that Haiti is currently too dangerous and doesn’t have enough resources to help those being deported to a country of nearly 12 million people, of whom more than half need humanitarian assistance because of surging gang violence and deepening poverty.
The Human Cost
Gang violence already has displaced a record 1.5 million people across Haiti, where more than 3,100 people were reported killed from January to June and 1,189 others injured, according to UN statistics.
One deportee, Jean Diane Louis, said he left Haiti when he was 5 years old and was sentenced to 19 years in prison for a crime he says he did not commit. “Then ICE came and took me without questioning me. They just sent me here,” he said.
The Bottom Line
The US has deported the first group of 161 Haitians to Cap-Haïtien after the Supreme Court allowed the end of Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Haitians. Activists warn that Haiti, devastated by gang violence and poverty, is too dangerous to receive deportees. Many deportees face perilous journeys home, and the Haitian government admits it cannot provide adequate support.
