A former senior Haitian government official wanted on corruption allegations in his volatile homeland, who was arrested last week by U.S. immigration authorities, was deported Thursday along with 100 other Haitian nationals.

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

The Global X Immigration and Customs Enforcement Air charter flight originated in Alexandria, Louisiana, and departed Opa-locka Executive Airport at 11 a.m. on Thursday. It arrived in Cap-Haïtien at 12:31 p.m. Haitian authorities were told that as many as 78 people could be aboard, including Hédouville, who was arrested on Aug. 25 in Montgomery, Alabama, during an interview to adjust his immigration status in the United States.

In the end, 101 were returned to the country, their repatriation coinciding with the discovery of two boatloads of Haitian migrants trying to illegally enter the nearby Turks and Caicos and The Bahamas.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced the flight in a post on X about an hour before the aircraft departed the Miami-area. “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 in Haiti. The footage was set to an upbeat Haitian song, its imagery prompting outrage and condemnation from Haitians and immigrant rights advocates.

Thursday’s flight is the third in three weeks in which ICE 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.

Six days later, armed violence that occurred Aug. 29, in the locality of Jean Denis, located in the municipality of Petite Rivière, in the Artibonite region just north of the capital, displaced at least 900 individuals, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said.

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.

Official’s return

On Thursday, Haitian authorities refused to let journalists photograph or video the aircraft’s arrival, presumably due to Hédouville’s presence. Upon disembarking he was quickly placed in a private vehicle, while other deportees were transferred to a waiting room. Staffers with the Office of National Migration also refused to let journalists approach Hédouville.

A person at the airport who identified himself as a lawyer and friend of Hédouville said the former government official was detained by ICE in the U.S. while he was attending what was supposed to be a routine interview for a green card. Hédouville had applied more than a year ago to become a permanent U.S. resident.

In December, Haiti’s transitional authorities adopted a controversial decree governing the High Court of Justice that effectively shields senior government officials accused of malfeasance and other crimes committed while in office from prosecution in the country’s regular courts. Under the decree, such officials can only be tried through a process involving Parliament, a provision that has drawn sharp criticism from the French and Canadian embassies in Haiti.

Prior to fleeing Haiti for the U.S., Hédouville had been the subject of an investigation by Haiti’s anti-corruption agency, L’Unité de Lutte Contre la Corruption, or ULCC. 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 misconduct 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, the same warrant the ICE spokesperson cited in confirming his arrest last week.

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

Haitians migrant boat arrived in Bahamas

As Thursday’s U.S. deportation flight made its way to Haiti, immigration officials in The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos both issued statements advising that overloaded vessels carrying altogether 317 Haitian migrants had been interdicted in their respective waters Wednesday.

The Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force Marine Branch intercepted a vessel suspected of being involved in illegal migration during the early hours of Wednesday, in the vicinity of Northwest Point, Providenciales. Marine Branch officers found an overloaded vessel carrying 171 irregular migrants. The latest interception brings the total number of migrants intercepted at sea in 2026 to approximately 1,075 aboard eight vessels, the Turks and Caicos said.

Bahamian authorities said they intercepted a boat hours later, at around 8 p.m. They did not say how many migrants were aboard, only that they will be processed to establish their identities and will eventually be repatriated back to Haiti via Cap-Haïtien. In a separate post, the U.S. Embassy in Nassau said 146 Haitians were intercepted with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard crews.

Last week, Indrika Ratwatte, acting United Nations assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the U.N. Security Council that Haitians continue to be displaced in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and Artibonite region amid surging gang violence, deepening hunger and rapes. At the same time, he said, deportations to Haiti continue.

“In the first eight months of 2026, almost 200,000 people were forcibly returned, a 10% increase compared with the same period last year,” he said. “Many arrive without resources, documentation or support networks, and some have especially urgent protection needs, including survivors of sexual violence, pregnant and lactating women, people with disabilities, and unaccompanied and separated children.”

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