Trump sends first Haiti deportation flight after ending protected status for 350,000

(Bloomberg) — The Trump administration is carrying out the first deportation flight to Haiti since ending humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the U.S.

The flight departed Alexandria, La., earlier Thursday with a planned stop in Miami before a scheduled departure for Cap-Haitien, Haiti, according to Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been carrying out one deportation flight a month to Haiti for months, but Thursday’s marks the first since the government won a legal battle to end Temporary Protected Status for migrants from the troubled island nation. It wasn’t clear who was aboard the most recent flight, including whether any of the passengers had recently lost their TPS status.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Thursday that it does not confirm deportation flights “for operations security reasons.”

About 350,000 Haitians had been allowed to live and work in the US without fear of deportation since TPS was granted in 2010 after a deadly earthquake destroyed large parts of the country. In the years since the earthquake Haiti has also experienced political unrest and gang violence, including the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. 

Related

More

The end of TPS has been met with broad criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike, who have argued that forcing Haitians out of the US will put cause a further shortage of workers in healthcare, including long-term care facilitates, while putting in danger those who return. The US State Department has Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory for Haiti because of rampant crime, kidnappings, terrorism, civil unrest and limited healthcare. 

Ending TPS has been a cornerstone of Trump’s broader pledge to carry out a mass arrest and deportation campaign, which so far has yielded about 590,000 deportations and roughly 550,000 arrests of foreigners in the U.S. since he returned to office in 2025. The administration has argued the program was always intended to be temporary but for too long had allowed recipients to remain in the U.S. indefinitely.

Earlier this year the Supreme Court gave the administration permission to wind down the programs. To date, TPS for hundreds of thousands of foreigners from 13 countries, including roughly 600,000 Venezuelans, have expired. Protections for about 170,000 people from El Salvador, who were granted TPS following an earthquake in 2001, are set to expire in September.

— With assistance from Maya Averbuch.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.