Over 160 Haitians deported to Cap-Haïtien from US and Bahamas in one day

Haiti received 161 immigrants deported from the United States and the Bahamas Thursday, with both countries returning migrants to Cap-Haïtien as immigration enforcement intensifies.

The two deportation flights arrived within hours of each other at Cap-Haïtien International Airport. The Bahamas returned 104 Haitians, while a U.S. charter flight brought 57, according to Haitian and foreign news reports.

Children born in the United States and Brazil were among those aboard the U.S. flight, the Miami Herald reported.

The arrivals came as the Trump administration prepares to increase deportation flights to Haiti from about once a month to once a week.

Two flights, one airport

The Bahamasair flight carried 76 men, 27 women and one girl, according to Bahamian immigration officials. The migrants were transported from the Carmichael Road Detention Centre to Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau before flying to Haiti.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) charter flight departed from South Florida carrying 57 Haitians. Human Rights Watch personnel at the Cap-Haïtien airport told The New York Times that the flight arrived shortly before noon, after the Bahamas flight had landed. The unusually large number of arrivals from the Bahamas strained the capacity of Haitian migration authorities and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to receive them, according to the Times.

The Aug. 27 arrivals followed a U.S. deportation flight on Aug. 20 that brought more than 160 Haitians to Cap-Haïtien. None were former Haitian beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Haiti’s National Office of Migration (ONM) said. The group included people facing removal proceedings after entering the United States without authorization, including some born outside Haiti to Haitian parents, and convicts who had served prison sentences.

The growing number of deportation arrivals presents another challenge for Haiti, which is already grappling with insecurity, mass displacement and limited resources.

Cap-Haïtien has become an increasingly important entry point for deportees because returning people directly to Port-au-Prince by air remains difficult. The main road linking the two cities has become increasingly dangerous, with armed groups controlling or disrupting sections of the route.

As deportation flights increase, the pressure on northern Haiti is likely to grow, raising questions about the country’s capacity to receive, assist and reintegrate people arriving from abroad while its own institutions face severe security and resource constraints.

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