First Deportation Flight to Haiti After TPS Halt Included Pedophiles, Drug Traffickers: DHS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released details on Aug. 24 of the first deportation flight to Haiti following the termination of the country’s temporary protected status (TPS).

More than 1 million foreign nationals from 13 countries who were living in the United States with deportation protections recently had those safeguards revoked and are now classified as illegal aliens. Among those individuals removed on the first deportation flight last week were convicted pedophiles, drug traffickers, and violent assailants, the agency said.

“Temporary Protected Status is exactly that—temporary,” a DHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.”

The deportation flight to Haiti departed the United States on Aug. 20, carrying 162 illegal immigrants.

Homeland Security detailed in a news release who several of those individuals were.

An accused member of the Zoe Pound gang, McGuyverson Jetin, entered the United States through Florida in June 2006 and was granted lawful permanent residency the following year. He was convicted of one count of sexual battery and four counts of lewd or lascivious conduct with a child.

Following his convictions, an immigration judge issued Jetin a final order of removal in June 2018, but he remained in the United States until his deportation to Haiti last week.

According to DHS, an accused member of the 88 Crush Mob gang, Davidson Athis, entered the country at an unknown date and location. He had several convictions for multiple assault charges, burglary, fraud, drug possession, reckless endangerment, trespassing, and disorderly conduct.

Athis’s final order of removal was issued in May 2023.

Another man, Jean Daniel Henry, had been convicted of burglary, larceny, multiple drug charges, possession of stolen property, fraud, carrying a concealed weapon, trespassing, and destroying evidence. He came to the United States in 1982 as a lawful permanent resident.

An immigration judge issued a final removal order for Henry in September 2025.

Several other deported foreign nationals were described in the news release, and their convictions included assault on a pregnant woman, child sex crimes, burglary, drug offenses, alien smuggling, and driving under the influence.

A DHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times that their message to individuals up for removal remains the same: “What we would say now is it’s closing time, which means you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

The agency said that foreign nationals who choose to self-deport could receive a $2,600 check and a free flight home.

Although more than a million people are now up for removal with the end of deportation protections for 13 countries, questions remain about how the Trump administration intends to enforce the TPS terminations for so many foreign nationals.

The countries that lost their TPS designations are Haiti, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, South Sudan, Burma (also known as Myanmar), Somalia, and Ethiopia.

The Supreme Court allowed the federal government in June to terminate TPS for Haiti and Syria, specifically. The justices’ reasoning applied to other cases involving the other nationalities.

The last judicial block against ending Ethiopians’ protections fell on Aug. 18.

Few options remain for foreign nationals attempting to challenge their removal, Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor who worked on immigration issues, previously told The Epoch Times.

“They can sue, but they’re probably gonna lose,” he said. “It’s been pretty clear the executive branch can remove these protections.”

Enforcing the end of TPS could take time, Rahmani said.

“I expect that a lot of people who don’t have legal status to be here, they’ll continue to remain here, live in the United States unlawfully,” he said. “It’ll be up to DHS to find them, apprehend them, and remove them.”