ICE Deportation Flight Marks Inhumane Return to Haiti After TPS Revocation
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The U.S. government has resumed deportations to Haiti, sending over 160 vulnerable Haitian nationals back to a country wracked by violence, after the Supreme Court upheld the end of Temporary Protected Status.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) charter transporting more than 160 Haitian nationals touched down in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti’s second-largest city, on Thursday. This forced removal comes as the main international gateway in Port-au-Prince remains closed to U.S. commercial flights through early September, a direct result of the unchecked gang violence that plagues the country—a crisis exacerbated by decades of U.S. intervention and neglect.
The deportees, many of whom covered their faces in fear, declined to speak with reporters, terrified of retaliation from the gangs that now control much of the capital and surrounding areas. The U.S. Department of State, in a display of hypocrisy, currently advises its own citizens against all travel to Haiti, citing rampant crime, kidnapping, unrest, and a collapsed health care system—yet still forcibly returns Haitians to these same dangers.
This flight follows the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Trump administration’s cruel authority to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 350,000 Haitians living in the United States. Earlier this month, a district judge lifted a stay on removals, paving the way for these heartless deportations to proceed.
Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti’s national office of migration, told the Miami Herald that some of those on the plane were born in Chile or the Dominican Republic but were sent to Haiti simply because of a Haitian parent—a clear example of the arbitrary and punitive nature of U.S. immigration policy.
"It is a stunning contradiction that an administration that advises Americans against all travel to Haiti would compel hundreds of thousands of Haitians into such dire circumstances," said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the immigrant-serving nonprofit Global Refuge, highlighting the callous disregard for human life.
Deportees received a paltry cash allowance of about $76, an amount that doesn’t even cover the cost of a commercial ticket to Port-au-Prince, let alone the dangerous journey through gang-controlled routes. Critics rightly point out that Haitian workers under TPS contribute significantly to the U.S. economy, paying taxes and filling essential jobs, yet are now discarded without regard.
This flight is the first of at least eight ICE deportations to Haiti this year, including a July 16 flight that carried individuals with criminal records—further stigmatizing an already marginalized community.