![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/haitideport2.jpg\" "\\"An")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight landed at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, July 16, 2026 at Cap-Ha\u00eftien\u2019s international airport carrying 111 Haitian nationals who were deported from the United States. Some 32 were criminal records were imprisoned while one told authorities neither he nor his parents were born in Haiti.<\/p>\n
G\u00e9rard Maxineau<\/p>\n
For the Miami Herald<\/p>\n
Days before hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. are set to lose deportation protections, the Trump administration on Thursday flew more than 100 Haitian nationals back to the Caribbean country, signaling the start of what Haiti officials and immigration advocates expect to be a surge in removals beginning next week.<\/p>\n
More than 300,000 Haitians in the U.S. will lose Temporary Protected Status on July 24,<\/a> leaving them vulnerable to detention and deportation.<\/p>\n The plane carrying the deportees arrived on the same day the United Nations confirmed that a deadly gang rampage in the hills above Port-au-Prince had left at least 61 people dead, including 14 children.<\/p>\n \u201cEscalating deportation flights to a country engulfed in violence and instability, and deporting people with Temporary Protected Status who have built their lives, families, and communities in the United States, is an abomination,\u201d said Savi Arvey, policy director for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First, which monitors deportation flights.<\/p>\n \u201cThese deportations blatantly ignore the reality on the ground and knowingly put lives at risk,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight originated in Alexandria, LA with a stop in Miami, and departed shortly after 11:30 a.m. The seventh deportation flight to Haiti this year, it arrived at Cap-Ha\u00eftien\u2019s small international airport at 1:30 p.m.<\/p>\n Two deportation flights a week<\/p>\n U.S. officials have warned the Haitian government that after TPS protections end next week they should expect at least two weekly flights returning a total of 250 people. The deportees return in shackles with nothing more than the clothing on their backs even after years or decades in the United States.<\/p>\n The prospect of mass deportations to a country reeling from deadly gang warfare, a deepening humanitarian emergency and record numbers of people who have fled their homes has alarmed Haitians at home and abroad.<\/p>\n \u201cHaiti is truly not prepared to receive these people<\/a>,\u201d said Katia Bont\u00e9, coordinator of Groupe d\u2019Appui aux Rapatri\u00e9s et Refugi\u00e9s, GARR, a Haitian nonprofit that has worked since 1991 to protect the rights of migrants, refugees and deportees, particularly those expelled from the neighboring Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Supreme Court TPS ruling could deepen Haiti\u2019s worsening crisis, experts say<\/a><\/p>\n The organization is already struggling to assist an estimated 20,000 Haitians who are deported each month from the Dominican Republic, often in miserable conditions.<\/p>\n Most of Haiti\u2019s West region, home to Port-au-Prince and the gateway to the country\u2019s other nine geographic areas, is under the control of armed gangs, which have torched police stations, hospitals and schools. Buildings that haven\u2019t been destroyed have become makeshift encampments where displaced families live with no toilets, electricity or security<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bont\u00e9s group, which has managed to keep its officers in the Christ-Roi neighborhood of the capital despite attacks, is now sandwiched between three camps and private homes occupied by some of the displaced, she said.<\/p>\n Deadly gang attack in Kenscoff<\/p>\n On Thursday, as Haiti\u2019s Office of National Migration prepared to receive the latest group of deportees in Cap-Ha\u00eftien, St\u00e9phane Dujarric, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, told reporters in New York that following a documented attack on July 9 in the town of Kenscoff, human rights colleagues had reported more attacks.<\/p>\n The 5 Segond gang, led by one of the country\u2019s most notorious gang leaders, Johnson Andre, aka \u201cIzo,\u201d had carried out a series of attacks in Kenscoff and P\u00e9tion-Ville in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.<\/p>\n \u201cResidents were killed while attempting to flee inside their homes or after encountering gang members on roads and footpaths,\u201d Dujarric said. The violence was concentrated in the community of Robin and at least 5,840 people were displaced, he added, \u201cwhile homes and telecommunications infrastructure were just outright destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n In northern Haiti, where deportation flights are landing in the city of Cap-Ha\u00eftien because U.S. commercial flights are still barred from flying into Port-au-Prince, life isn\u2019t much better. The port city, which served as the capital of the pre-independence Haiti<\/a>, is struggling to absorb people displaced by armed gangs in the West, Central Plateau and Artibonite regions, as well as Haitians deported from other countries.<\/p>\n The city has expanded more than fifteenfold compared to its size in the 1970s, said Mich\u00e8le Oriol, the former head of a Haitian government agency responsible for land-use planning and territorial development. Oriol recently told Magik 9 radio station<\/a> that in addition to the risk presented by a major earthquake fault that runs near the city, the overcrowding is \u201ca public health disaster waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n READ ME: Haitians are set to lose TPS benefits on July 24. Here is what they need to know<\/a><\/p>\n Beyond the rampant gang violence, Haitians are facing widespread hunger<\/a>. More than half of the population is unable to find enough to eat.<\/p>\n That hasn\u2019t stopped the Trump administration\u2019s deportation efforts. Even before the end of TPS on July 24, the administration notified Haitian authorities that it will start increasing the number of flights.<\/p>\n Haitian officials were told that those onboard Thursday\u2019s flight were TPS beneficiaries but were given no information to verify that. A spot check of the manifest showed that at least two were not born in Haiti while several deportees have criminal histories. They include registered child sex offenders and convicted drug traffickers. One passenger was identified by U.S. authorities as a gang member at the time of his arrest.<\/p>\n Of an initial 130 Haitians who were supposed to be returned, 111 landed in the country. Mostly dressed in white sweatpants and white T-shirt, they shielded their face as they exited the aircraft under the supervision of Haiti National Police officers who were deployed onto the airport tarmac. Teams from the Office of National Migration were also on site to receive and process the group, which included a pregnant woman.<\/p>\n \u201cOur mission is to receive repatriated Haitians with dignity, with the support of the Haitian government,\u201d Jean N\u00e9got Bonheur Delva, the general director of the office, said. \u201cIt is important to emphasize that these returns are not the result of a request by the Haitian government, but rather a decision by the United States authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, 32 deportees were transferred to jail, he said, due to criminal records. The others were given the equivalent of $130 to assist them with their return. Officials also spent hours questioning one of the deportees, Emmanuel McSweeney, 29, who told officials that neither he nor his parents were born in Haiti. Born in The Bahamas, he entered the U.S. when he was 3 with his mother, overstayed his visa and later got into trouble with the law.<\/p>\n Court records show that in 2020, following his arrests for cocaine possession and burglary, the former Broward County resident was \u201cordered removed from the United States to The Bahamas,\u201d which refused to receive him.<\/p>\n \u2018Now is not the time\u2019<\/p>\n Haiti\u2019s security and humanitarian situation remains extremely fragile, with essential public services under severe strain and the country\u2019s ability to receive an influx of returnees already overwhelmed by the tens of thousands who have been sent back from the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n At this current rate, the country has told U.S. officials, any sharp increase in the number of returnees would exceed their ability to provide humanitarian assistance or help with reintegration. There is also another problem: Haiti\u2019s prisons are already severely crowded, and two of the largest prisons have not been rebuilt following 2024\u2019s massive prison break by gangs launching coordinated attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe understand it\u2019s temporary,\u201d Haiti Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aim\u00e9 said about TPS policy in the United States. \u201cBut T also stands for timing. This is not the time to send those people back.\u201d<\/p>\n Under U.S. law, the Department of Homeland Security must review conditions when deciding whether to renew or end protections for a country. Internal documents filed as part of the U.S. Supreme Court case that paved the way for Trump to end TPS show that former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem did not carry out the required consultations with other agencies about conditions in Haiti.<\/p>\n READ MORE: \u2018Noem lied\u2019: Emails suggest DHS ignored federal law to end TPS for 350k Haitians<\/a><\/p>\n In June, the U.N.\u2019s International Office for Migration reported that recent gang attacks had driven the number of people forced to flee their homes to a record 1.47 million as of May. That number has since gone up with the fresh attacks in Kenscoff.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first time, the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince alone counted more than 300,000 displaced persons,\u201d the immigration office said. \u201cAt the same time, more than 25,000 Haitian migrants were forcibly returned from neighboring countries, many arriving with urgent humanitarian needs.\u201d<\/p>\n Bont\u00e9 said her colleagues working along the Haitian-Dominican border see those needs on a daily basis.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a catastrophic situation where all you see is misery,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are areas where services were already nonexistent or weak, like schools, hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n In arguments in federal courts before the Supreme Court ruling, lawyers for Homeland Security argued that Haitians deported from the U.S. don\u2019t have to live in gang-controlled territories and they could relocate elsewhere.<\/p>\n Bont\u00e9 said the reality is more complicated. Even when public buses or motorcycles are able to travel along back roads or main roads controlled by gangs, the trip is \u201cobsessively expensive and highly risky,\u201d she said. \u201cYes, there are other regions without the gang problem, but they are saddled with a lot of other problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Deportations will deepen crisis<\/p>\n Guerline Jozef, executive director of the U.S. advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the deportations and the expected surge of people will only deepen Haiti\u2019s crisis.<\/p>\n The latest gang attacks \u201chighlight the growing humanitarian and security crisis facing communities that were once considered safe havens from the violence affecting much of Haiti,\u201d said Jozef, renewing her calls for a halt to the deportations.<\/p>\n \u201cThese deportations are how the U.S. is literally adding gas to the fire and will create more chaos, instability and force more people to flee.\u201d<\/p>\n Herald writer G\u00e9rard Maxineau contributed to this report from Cap-Ha\u00eftien, Haiti.<\/p>\n This story was originally published July 16, 2026 at 2:47 PM.<\/p>\n A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flight landed in Haiti on Thursday, July 16, 2026. A number of detainees had criminal histories. G\u00e9rard Maxineau For the Miami Herald <\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/haitideportflight.jpg\" "\\"haitideportflight.jpg\\"")
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight landed at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, July 16, 2026, at Cap-Ha\u00eftien\u2019s international airport carrying 111 Haitian nationals who were deported from the United States. Some 32 were criminal records were imprisoned while one told authorities neither he nor his parents were born in Haiti. G\u00e9rard Maxineau For the Miami Herald <\/p>\n