Overview
- A U.S. deportation plane carrying more than 160 people landed in Cap-Haïtien on Friday, Aug. 21, marking the first large removal after legal clearances to end TPS for many Haitians.
- U.S. officials routed the flight to Cap-Haïtien because commercial flights to Port-au-Prince remain barred by the U.S. over pervasive gang violence that makes the capital unsafe.
- Haitian migration officials said the group included people who had held TPS and some who had finished prison terms, and that authorities will try to reunite returnees with family when possible.
- The Haitian government offered returnees up to $65, meals and temporary shelter, while aid groups warned Haiti lacks the resources to absorb large numbers of arrivals and faces mass displacement and high conflict-related casualties.
- The removals followed a late-June Supreme Court decision allowing the end of TPS and a U.S. federal judge’s Aug. 5 lifting of an injunction, and monitors say deportation flights have commonly used an Alexandria–Miami–Cap-Haïtien routing since late 2025.