First deportees arrive in Haiti after U.S. ends TPS protection

More than 160 Haitian nationals arrived in Haiti on Thursday, deported from the U.S. for the first time since the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for approximately 350,000 Haitians. The plane landed in Cap-Haitien, as the main airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is deemed too dangerous amid escalating gang violence.

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It is not the Haitian state that asks for them to be sent back. Our mission is to welcome migrants of forced return. … We welcome them with the aim of accompanying them to their home.

The U.S. government has banned commercial flights to Port-au-Prince through early September due to the ongoing crisis. Deportees, many covering their faces for safety, arrived to find journalists filming. Most declined to speak, fearing repercussions from gangs that control an estimated 70% of the capital and surrounding areas.

Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti's National Office of Migration, stated that the Haitian state did not request these deportations. "Our mission is to welcome migrants of forced return," he said, adding that the aim is to accompany them to their homes. Delva noted that some deportees were not born in Haiti but are of Haitian descent, including one individual born in the Dominican Republic whose mother and father live there. The government plans to help reunify this individual with relatives.

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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. … The government would attempt to reunify him with any potential relatives in Haiti or the Dominican Republic, where his mother and father live.

Immigration officials offered the deportees a small sum of money, food, and drink. Those unable to reach their homes immediately will be housed in secure locations. Delva did not specify how many of the 161 deportees were TPS holders who had legally resided and worked in the U.S. since 2010. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the TPS program to end in June, affecting nearly one million people from over a dozen countries.

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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.