The US deported more than 160 people to Haiti on Thursday, marking the first such flight since the Trump administration won a legal battle to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for some 3,50,000 Haitians.
The plane landed in Cap-Haitien in northern Haiti because the main airport in Port-au-Prince is considered too dangerous amid ongoing gang violence. The US has banned commercial flights to Haiti's capital until early September.
The deportees, many dressed in white, arrived with their faces covered. Most declined to speak to journalists, with some expressing concerns about being targeted by gangs.
Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti's National Office of Migration, said the group included TPS holders and Haitians who had previously served 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.”
Deportees face uncertain journey home
Delva said some deportees were not born in Haiti but were of Haitian descent. Several planned to travel to the country's southern region, where reaching home can be difficult because gangs control major routes.
Others were heading to western Haiti.
“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 said.
He said authorities would try to reunite the man with relatives in Haiti or the Dominican Republic, where his parents live.
Haitian immigration officials provided each deportee with up to $65, along with food and a drink.
“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.
Activists warn of worsening crisis
Activists have warned that Haiti lacks the security and resources needed to receive large numbers of deportees. More than half of the country's nearly 12 million people are estimated to need humanitarian assistance amid worsening gang violence, poverty and hunger.
UN figures show that gang violence has displaced around 1.5 million people. More than 3,100 people were reported killed between January and June, while another 1,189 were injured.
One deportee, Jean Diane Louis, told the Associated Press that he left Haiti at the age of five and that his family lives in New York.
“Then ICE came and took me without questioning me,” Louis said. “They just sent me here.”
Rights groups oppose deportations
Haiti's Group Supporting Refugees and Returnees criticised the deportations.
“Haiti is not ready to receive this number of migrants who were in the TPS programme,” it said.
The group said many deportees faced family separation and the loss of communities they had built in the US.
“We note that there are no government measures in place to adequately assist these migrants,” the group said.
The US has conducted about one deportation flight to Haiti since December 2023, according to Human Rights First's ICE Flight Monitor.