The U.S. returned more than 160 individuals to Haiti on Thursday, marking the first such flight since the Trump administration legally ended Temporary Protected Status for about 350,000 Haitians. Due to extreme danger at Port-au-Prince's primary international airport, the flight landed in the northern city of Cap-Haïtien. A U.S. government ban currently prohibits American commercial flights to the capital through early September amid persistent gang warfare.
Wearing white garments, many of the returnees obscured their faces for protection while reporters recorded their arrival. Almost all refused to speak, with several expressing fear of retaliation from gangs that control roughly 70 percent of Port-au-Prince and extensive territory beyond it. According to Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti’s National Office of Migration, the group comprised TPS recipients alongside individuals who had served sentences in prison.
"It is not the Haitian state that asks for them to be sent back," he stated. "Our mission is to welcome migrants of forced return. … We welcome them with the aim of accompanying them to their home." Delva said a portion of those repatriated were born outside Haiti, despite having Haitian heritage. He explained that a number of returnees intended to travel toward southern Haiti—a hazardous trip given that criminal gangs command key transit corridors and frequently open fire on passing traffic.
Others are heading to the western region, Delva said. "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 added that officials will seek to connect him with family members in Haiti or the Dominican Republic, where his parents reside.
Haitian immigration authorities provided the arriving individuals with up to $65, along with food and refreshments, 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 said. Delva did not clarify how many among the 161 individuals were TPS beneficiaries who had legally resided and worked in the U.S. since 2010.
Supreme Court allowed the termination of the TPS program in late June, impacting roughly 1 million people across more than a dozen nations. Though the cases returned to lower courts, federal authorities had not extended employment authorizations for Haitians by late July. By Aug. 5, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., dissolved an injunction barring deportations of Haitians under Temporary Protected Status, effectively finalizing the Supreme Court's earlier determination.
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