US sends another deportation flight to Haiti. A former Haitian official is aboard | National News

Renan Hédouville, a lawyer and human-rights advocate who served as Haiti’s ombudsman, asked to voluntarily return to the country.

The Global X ICE Air charter flight originated in Alexandria, Louisiana, and departed Opa-locka Executive Airport at 11 a.m. on Thursday. It is expected to arrive in Cap-Haïtien at 12:29 p.m. Haitian authorities were told that as many as 78 people could be aboard, including Hédouville, who was arrested last week while visiting Montgomery, Alabama.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced the flight in a post on X about an hour before the aircraft departed Miami. “Good morning, America. Today’s deportation destination: HAITI,” he said with a photo of shackled deportees walking in a straight line toward the aircraft. The image is the latest in which the agency has turned Haitian deportations into theater.

Last week, DHS posted a grainy, dark video of Haitian deportees in shackles and chains boarding an airplane in the rain, just days after gangs had carried out a massacre. The video was set to an upbeat Haitian song, its imagery prompting outrage and condemnation from Haitians and immigrant rights activists.

Thursday’s flight is the third in three weeks in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement has carried out deportations on the heels of the Supreme Court clearing the way for the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 300,000 Haitians, even as litigation over the termination continues.

The stepped-up deportations come despite continuing political instability and gang violence in Haiti, where armed groups control much of the capital and continue to expand their reach into other regions. Last week, dozens of people were shot and burned alive inside their homes in the hillside community of Kenscoff, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, and more than 50 were abducted after gunmen stormed the town.

Two weeks earlier, gangs attacked Fort Dimanche in Cité Soleil, where several elderly residents who were unable to flee their homes were killed. An 18-year-old student who had fled the area to avoid being recruited by a gang but later returned because he had nowhere else to go was also killed, a community leader told the Herald as she described how local nuns had to take in dozens of children who were dropped off by their parents after the attack.

Prior to fleeing to the United States, Hédouville was the subject of an investigation by Haiti’s anti-corruption agency, L’Unité de Lutte Contre la Corruption. Investigators accused him of obstruction of justice, unlawful contracting and, among other things, claiming $127,630 in expenses linked to fictitious missions and plane tickets for nearly a dozen trips. He is also accused of making payments to his daughter and former son-in-law, who were employed by him.

The alleged corruption occurred between 2019-24 while Hédouville headed the Office of Citizen Protection, the government agency charged with safeguarding human rights. He refused to cooperate with investigators and even sued the agency. Soon, Haiti’s Central Directorate of the Judicial Police issued an arrest warrant for him, which an ICE spokesperson cited when confirming his arrest last week.

The spokesperson said he entered the United States lawfully on May 4, 2025, and failed depart the country by November 2025, per the terms of his admission.

Hédouville’s return is being closely watched in Haiti, where questions remain about what will happen when he arrives: Will he be allowed to return home or will he be taken into police custody?

During his absence, Haiti’s transitional authorities adopted a controversial decree shielding senior government officials accused of malfeasance and other crimes committed while in office from prosecution in the country’s regular courts.