The First Deportation Flight to Haiti After TPS Ends Lands in Cap-Haïtien With 161 People — Into a Country the U.S. Government Itself Bars Its Own Citizens From Flying Into

August 22, 2026

On Thursday, August 20, 2026, an ICE charter carrying 161 people left Alexandria, Louisiana and landed at Cap-Haïtien — the first deportation flight to Haiti since the Trump administration formally terminated Temporary Protected Status for roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals, a termination the Supreme Court affirmed in June. Those aboard included former TPS holders as well as people who had completed prison sentences. DHS has said it plans twice-weekly flights. The destination is itself the story: the U.S. government's own ban on commercial flights into Port-au-Prince, in force through early September because of gang violence, forced the flight to land 130 miles north in Cap-Haïtien. The United Nations has warned that Haiti — where armed groups control most of the capital and more than a million people are displaced — cannot absorb mass returns. Local officials in Cap-Haïtien said they were not ready. Democratic lawmakers who have spent two years trying to extend Haitian TPS by statute responded within hours. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who led the House effort to extend the designation, called the deportations "cruel and shameful." Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), co-chair of the Haiti Caucus, said the removals were "a humanitarian betrayal that will stain America for generations." Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), whose Cincinnati-area district has one of the country's larger recently arrived Haitian populations, said the deportations were "inhumane." Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called the flight "utterly shameful," and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said it was "cruel" to strip the protections now. No congressional Republican was found on the record about the flight in the first 48 hours.