First ICE Deportation Flight Enforces Law After TPS Ends for Haitians
Select a version of the text written from a presumed ideological perspective. This is not the original text, but a hypothetical version — how someone with that viewpoint might have phrased it. Tapping the current version again will return to the original or select cleaned version.
ICE has resumed deportations to Haiti, returning over 160 Haitian nationals after the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s decision to end 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. The airport was used because the main international gateway in Port-au-Prince remains closed to U.S. commercial flights through early September due to ongoing gang violence, underscoring the instability that has plagued the country for years.
The deportees, many of whom covered their faces, declined to speak with reporters, citing concerns about retaliation from gangs that control much of the capital and surrounding areas. The U.S. Department of State currently advises citizens against all travel to Haiti, warning of crime, kidnapping, unrest, and limited health care, highlighting the dangerous conditions in the country.
The flight follows the Supreme Court’s decision that upheld the Trump administration’s authority to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 350,000 Haitians living in the United States. A district judge lifted a stay on removals earlier this month, finally allowing the deportations to proceed in accordance with U.S. law.
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 because of a Haitian parent, reflecting the enforcement of immigration rules.
"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. However, the U.S. government’s priority remains the enforcement of immigration laws and the protection of American interests.
Deportees received a cash allowance of about $76, which is less than the cost of a commercial ticket to Port-au-Prince but intended to cover travel through gang-controlled routes. While critics claim that Haitian workers under TPS contribute to the U.S. economy, the rule of law and the integrity of the immigration system must be maintained.
The 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, demonstrating the administration’s commitment to public safety.