The U.S. deported more than 160 people to Haiti on Thursday, marking the first such action since the Trump administration secured a legal victory to terminate Temporary Protected Status for approximately 350,000 Haitians.
The flight landed in Cap-Haitien, a northern Haitian city, because the primary international airport in Port-au-Prince is deemed too dangerous. The U.S. government currently maintains a ban on U.S. commercial flights to Haiti's capital through early September due to ongoing gang violence.
The deportees were dressed in white, and many covered their faces for safety while journalists documented their arrival. Nearly all declined to speak, with some expressing fear of being targeted by gangs that control an estimated 70% of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas.
Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti’s National Office of Migration, stated that the deportees included both TPS holders and Haitians who had completed prison sentences.
“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. … We welcome them with the aim of accompanying them to their home.”
Deported Haitians Seek Shelter
Delva noted that some deportees were not born in Haiti, despite being of Haitian descent.
He mentioned that several deportees plan to travel to Haiti’s southern region, a perilous journey because gangs control the main routes to that area and are known to randomly fire upon vehicles passing through.
Others are heading toward Haiti’s western region, he added.
“There is one migrant who knows nothing about Haiti because he said he was coming from the Dominican Republic; that’s where he was born,” Delva reported.
He indicated that the government would attempt to reunite this individual with any potential relatives in either Haiti or the Dominican Republic, where his parents reside.
Immigration officials in Haiti offered deportees a maximum of $65 and provisions for food and drink on Thursday.
“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 stated.
Delva did not specify how many of the 161 deportees were TPS holders who had been legally employed and residing in the U.S. since 2010.
In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the end of the TPS program, impacting roughly one million people from over a dozen nations.
The cases proceeded to lower courts, but by late July, the government had not extended work permits for Haitians.
On August 5, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., lifted an order that prohibited the deportation of Haitians on Temporary Protected Status, which was largely procedural following the Supreme Court's June ruling.
Activists Warn Haiti Poses Danger to Deportees
Activists have cautioned that Haiti is currently too hazardous and lacks sufficient resources to assist those being deported to a country of nearly 12 million people, more than half of whom require humanitarian aid due to escalating gang violence and deepening poverty, hunger, and violence.
Gang violence has already led to the displacement of a record 1.5 million people across Haiti, with U.N. statistics reporting over 3,100 deaths and 1,189 injuries between January and June.
One deportee briefly spoke with The Associated Press upon arrival in Cap-Haitien. He identified himself as Jean Diane Louis and stated he left Haiti at age five. He said his family lives in New York City and that he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for an unspecified crime which he claimed he did not commit.
“Then ICE came and took me without questioning me,” Louis said. “They just sent me here.”
As gang violence continues, Haitian migrants in the U.S. face ongoing arrests and deportations.
On Thursday, U.S. authorities arrested a prominent Haitian pastor at a gas station in Springfield, Ohio, according to Springfield G92, a faith-based group supporting Haitian immigrants. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also apprehended a second Haitian man who was with him.
Marjory Wentworth, a spokesperson for Springfield G92, reported that the pastor, Gilbert Joubert Adrien, is being held by immigration authorities in Ohio. She noted that ICE has been highly active in recent days in Springfield, a city of about 60,000 people that gained attention when U.S. President Donald Trump falsely claimed during his 2024 campaign that Haitian residents there consumed dogs.
Haiti’s Group Supporting Refugees and Returnees has strongly criticized the deportations.
“Haiti is not ready to receive this number of migrants who were in the TPS program,” the group stated in a Thursday release.
The group pointed out that more than 140,000 Haitians have been deported from neighboring countries, including the Dominican Republic, in the first half of the year alone.
“We note that there are no government measures in place to adequately assist these migrants,” the group added.
It further mentioned that many deportees “have seen their dreams go up in smoke; the bonds they had already made in their communities are broken. Many are experiencing family separation.”
According to Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor, which tracks flight data, the U.S. conducted about one deportation flight to Haiti since December 2023. Since December 2025, flights have originated in Alexandria, Louisiana, an ICE deportation hub, with a stop in Miami en route to Cap-Haitien International Airport.