U.S. sends first batch of over 160 former TPS holders back to Haiti amid gang violence
More than 160 individuals, including former Temporary Protected Status recipients, were deported from the United States to Cap-Haitien, Haiti, marking the first such flight since the program’s termination, while Haitian officials warned of limited capacity to receive them.
The United States deported 161 people to Haiti on Thursday, the first mass return since a court lifted an order that had blocked removals of Haitians under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. The aircraft landed at Cap-Haitien International Airport because the main airport in Port-au-Prince remains closed to commercial flights amid ongoing gang violence.
The deportees, many wearing white garments and covering their faces, included former TPS holders and individuals who had served prison sentences in the United States. Haitian migration officials said the government does not request the returns but will provide temporary shelter, modest assistance and attempts to reunite family members where possible.
"It is not the Haitian state that asks for them to be sent back," said Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti's National Office of Migration. "Our mission is to welcome migrants of forced return and accompany them to their home."
Delva noted that some of those returned were not born in Haiti but are of Haitian descent, and that many will face dangerous travel routes controlled by gangs. The Haitian authorities offered each deportee up to $65 and basic food and drink, adding that those unable to reach their homes immediately would be housed in secure locations until they could continue their journey.
The deportations follow a Supreme Court decision in June that allowed the TPS program to end, affecting roughly one million people from multiple countries. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., later lifted a prior injunction that had prevented the removals of Haitian TPS recipients.
Humanitarian groups have warned that Haiti, where more than half of the 12-million population requires aid, lacks the resources to absorb the new arrivals. The United Nations reports that gang violence has displaced a record 1.5 million people and caused over 3,100 deaths since January.
One deportee, identified as Jean Diane Louis, told reporters he left Haiti at age five, had family in New York, 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 deportations have sparked criticism from Haitian advocacy groups, which say the country is not prepared to receive the influx and that the removals break family ties and jeopardize livelihoods.