US begins mass deportations to devastated Haiti
On Thursday, the Trump administration deported 161 people to Haiti aboard an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) charter flight, the first such flight since the administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for some 350,000 Haitians living in the United States.
The forced return of workers and their families to Haiti amounts to a virtual death sentence. More than 3,100 people were killed and another 1,189 injured by gang violence between January and June, according to United Nations figures. A record 1.5 million people have been displaced within a country where more than half the population requires humanitarian assistance.
The ICE flight did not land at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, because the US government considers it too dangerous. Instead, the charter plane landed more than 80 miles to the north in Cap-Haïtien.
The deportees emerged from the plane dressed in white. Many covered their faces as journalists filmed them, fearing that they could be identified and targeted by armed groups. Gangs control an estimated 70 percent of Port-au-Prince and large areas beyond the capital. They control major roads, extort travelers, kidnap people for ransom and fire on passing vehicles.
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Some of those deported were not even born in Haiti. Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti’s National Office of Migration, said that at least one man was born in the Dominican Republic and knew nothing of Haiti. His parents live in the Dominican Republic, but the United States deported him to Haiti because he is of Haitian descent.
Haitian immigration officials provided the deportees with no more than $65, along with something to eat and drink. Many were then expected to undertake dangerous journeys through gang-controlled territory to reach relatives or communities they may not have seen for decades.
Jean Diane Louis told the Associated Press that he left Haiti when he was five years old and that his family lives in New York City. “Then ICE came and took me without questioning me,” he said. “They just sent me here.”
Thursday’s operation is believed to be at least the eighth US deportation flight to Haiti this year. Haitian officials have been told to prepare for at least two flights every week, carrying roughly 250 people. The mass expulsions are proceeding despite warnings from Haitian officials and aid organizations that the country cannot safely receive those being deported.
The criminality and hypocrisy of the US government are staggering. The State Department maintains a Level 4 “Do not travel” advisory for Haiti because of “crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care.” It forbids US government employees from traveling away from the embassy for nonessential reasons and bars their family members from joining them in Haiti.
The Federal Aviation Administration prohibits US commercial carriers from flying to Port-au-Prince because of the danger posed by armed groups. Yet the same government is loading defenseless immigrants onto charter planes and abandoning them in the country with a few dollars in their pockets.
Since March 2025, the Haitian government has waged an undeclared drone war with the assistance of Vectus Global, a private military company run by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of the now-defunct Blackwater mercenary firm and a close ally of Trump.
Blackwater became internationally notorious during the US occupation of Iraq. In 2007, its mercenaries massacred 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. Trump pardoned four of the convicted killers during the final weeks of his first administration. Nearly two decades later, Prince has repackaged the same mercenary model for Haiti, where his latest company is assisting a campaign of extrajudicial drone killings.
According to a March report by Human Rights Watch, explosive-laden drones killed at least 1,243 people in 141 operations between March 1, 2025 and January 21, 2026. Those killed included at least 43 adults who were reportedly not members of criminal groups and 17 children. Another 738 people were injured, including at least 49 civilians.
Human Rights Watch found that the strikes were carried out in densely populated neighborhoods and that some appeared to be deliberate extrajudicial killings. In one September 2025 attack, a drone detonated near a sports and cultural complex where children had gathered for a gift distribution. Ten civilians were killed, including nine children between the ages of 3 and 12.
The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti has attributed the attacks to a specialized task force established by Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé and operated with support from Vectus Global. The State Department issued Vectus a license to export military services to Haiti.
US officials are now preparing closer cooperation with Prince’s mercenaries. In July, Colonel Justin Gorkowski, a Defense Department official overseeing the US-backed Gang Suppression Force, told Congress that the Haitian Task Force was a “tremendous partner.” He said US officials maintained informal coordination with Vectus at every level of command and expected the relationship to become closer.
The same imperialist power that has subjected Haiti to more than a century of invasions, occupations, coups and economic plunder is deporting workers into a catastrophe it helped create.
The deportation flight followed the Trump administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians on August 5. The program had allowed approximately 350,000 Haitians to live and work legally in the United States because conditions in Haiti made their safe return impossible.
In late June, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to end TPS protections affecting roughly 1 million immigrants from more than a dozen countries. On August 5, a federal judge lifted the remaining order temporarily preventing the deportation of Haitian TPS holders.
The rulings gave the White House judicial authorization for a decision it had already made. The objective is to transform hundreds of thousands of workers who entered the country legally, built families and became integral members of their communities into deportable “aliens” virtually overnight.
In Springfield, Ohio, more than 12,000 Haitian immigrants have settled and taken jobs in manufacturing, food processing and other industries. ICE thugs have fitted some of the workers with GPS ankle monitors of the type commonly imposed on people convicted of serious crimes and released on parole. The devices stigmatize Haitians as criminals and allow the immigration Gestapo to track and seize them more easily.
The assault is producing terror throughout Springfield. Workers fear going to their jobs. Families are afraid to attend medical appointments, schools, churches and public events. On Wednesday, ICE agents detained Pastor Gilbert Joubert Adrien and Victor Yonel at a Sunoco gas station on South Limestone Street. Yonel’s wife and another woman were reportedly in the vehicle. Agents released the two women but took the men.
According to a statement issued by Springfield G92, a local faith-rooted immigrant rights organization, Adrien is being held at the Butler County Detention Center. The group withheld the name of his church for security reasons.
Pastor Carl Ruby of Central Christian Church said Adrien “left Haiti because his life was in danger, served Christ and his congregation faithfully and his arrest shows how far ICE will stoop to incite panic among people who came here peacefully, came here legally and offered nothing but good to our community.”
The seizure of Adrien and Yonel exposes the lie that the administration is targeting the “worst of the worst.” The victims of the mass deportation campaign are workers, parents, children, neighbors and, in this case, a pastor who fled Haiti because his life was threatened.
The escalation of the mass deportation campaign comes as the Trump administration confronts an extraordinary political crisis. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday found Trump’s approval rating had fallen to 33 percent, the lowest of his presidency, with 64 percent disapproving of his performance.
The illegal US war against Iran has failed to achieve any of its aims while driving up energy costs and threatening a wider military conflagration. The national debt has surpassed $40 trillion. Gasoline prices were 24.6 percent higher in July than a year earlier. Trump is seeking to divert the immense social anger produced by war, inequality and declining living standards against immigrants.
Under these conditions, the mass deportation operation depends on the active collaboration of the Democratic Party and its so-called “socialist” representatives.
Since TPS was terminated on August 5, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has issued no public statement on the GPS shackling of Haitian workers, the ICE arrests in Springfield or Thursday’s deportation flight. During the same period, she devoted considerable social media attention to documenting her decision to freeze her eggs as she considers her political future, including a possible run for president.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has likewise issued no statement opposing the latest attacks on Haitian workers. On Thursday, as 161 people were deported to Haiti, Sanders found time to endorse Florida Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon. His endorsement came two days after Nixon defeated the party establishment’s heavily funded candidate, Alexander Vindman, without Sanders’ support.
Democratic Socialists of America member and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has gone beyond silence. On August 7, two days after Haitian TPS was terminated, Mamdani announced that New York City would fire Haitian municipal workers who had lost their work authorization. He called no protest, mounted no legal challenge and appealed for no strike action. He instead urged the workers to seek relief from the same Trump administration that had stripped them of their status.
New York is home to one of the largest Haitian communities in the United States. Mamdani’s decision makes the Democratic city administration a direct enforcer of Trump’s attack. As one Haitian Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker told the World Socialist Web Site, “We have to get all of them out of office, both Trump and Mamdani.”