Overcoming The Challenge of Mass Return to Haiti:
How Haiti’s Repatriated Diaspora Can Transform Crisis into Nation-Building.
Keywords: repatriated, Expulsion, TPS, Deportation, displaced, nation-building, resettlement, housing
2025
Written by the HAMREC Editorial and Policy Research Team
Belizaire Vital, Jean-Marie Leconte, Nephthalie Gabriel
The opinions in this article reflect the weekly discussions among analysts at the Haitian American Resources Committee, a think tank focused on Haitian resources. This article is part of our awareness program on economic justice, Good Governance, and Innovation in Haiti's Public Administration.
The US administration announced last week that it will terminate the TPS program for several countries, including Haiti. When the deadline expires on September 2, 2025, the decision will leave thousands stranded and fearing deportation, and, in many cases, will lead to family separation. It’s important to note that nobody is certain if the verdict will be rescinded or the date will be pushed later. One can only hope it affects only a fraction of the projected number.
Sending 348,187 Haitians with TPS or other legal status back to Haiti would strain the country's limited resources. Haiti is not prepared to handle this tremendous shock. Its infrastructure is fragile, the economy is struggling, and political turmoil persists. Mass deportation to a country that cannot support economically so many people will only perpetuate the existing cycle of despair, internal displacement, or movement toward more welcoming neighboring areas. Additionally, there is a higher risk that many young men among the deportees may turn to gang activities to survive once settled.
Here, we examine the ongoing trauma and the challenge of a mass return to Haiti, and how a united front among the returning Haitians can turn fear and poverty into a positive spin and economic revival.
Problem Statement
Deporting people who have lived in a country for a long time doesn't just change their lives; it also destroys families, hurts businesses, and breaks up communities. Local businesses from the sending location lose good employees and customers, some children lose a close connection to their parents, and neighbors lose familiar faces. The effects are profound and long-lasting, changing people in ways that may never entirely heal. Forcing large groups of people to leave their homes for countries that aren't ready to handle them, frequently with little warning, poses severe moral and humanitarian issues.
Haitians have spent hours on social media blaming foreign governments around the world for deporting their people, calling them discriminatory, and claiming that it violates fundamental human rights. Chief among their voices is the well-known speech by former Foreign Affairs Minister Dominique Dupuy. While Ms. Dupuy’s leadership in pushing back against the Dominican government is commendable, we must point out that criticizing deportation policies alone isn’t enough. Outrage on social media will not fix the issue. The real question is: What happens the minute the deportees set foot again on their homeland? How do we resettle the repatriated? How can we turn this humanitarian crisis into an opportunity for Nation-Building? Where will they shelter? Who…? Why…? It is not simple to answer so many questions in this short article.
Historical context
In the last 50 years, Many Haitians have left their homeland to settle in the U.S. and neighboring Caribbean countries. The people have seen their fair share of political upheaval, economic instability, and a devastating earthquake in 2010 that brought further financial loss and piled on them even more misery.
Following the Duvalier dictatorship (1957–1986), waves of Haitians fled repression and poverty, seeking refuge in the U.S., the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and elsewhere. However, they were often met with hostility, strict immigration policies, and racial discrimination.
For example, the U.S. has generally been harsher on Haitian migrants than on others. In the 1990s, many Haitians were detained at Guantánamo or were refused refugee status even though there was clear evidence that they were being persecuted. In the same way, the Dominican Republic's decision in 2013 to take away the citizenship of thousands of descendants of Haitian immigrants left them without a country to call home and exposed them to being sent away. These policies show that Caribbean countries and the US have long seen Haitian migration as a "crisis" that needs to be contained, rather than a humanitarian effect of a failing system.
In recent years, escalating gang violence, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse (2021), and worsening economic conditions have triggered new waves of displacement. Yet neighboring countries, already strained by limited resources, have responded with increased deportations. The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos have conducted raids and expulsions, while the U.S. has continued Title 42 expulsions and pressured Mexico to block Haitians at its southern border. This cycle repeats history: rather than addressing the root causes of Haiti’s instability, like foreign intervention, debt burdens, and elite corruption, governments treat displaced Haitians as a burden to be removed.
Traumatic Experience
Living with the fear of deportation takes a deep emotional and psychological toll, especially for Haitians in the U.S. who may lose Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Many have built their lives in the U.S., raising families, working, and contributing to their communities. The threat of being forced to return to a country they may no longer know, or never knew, creates constant anxiety. People avoid healthcare, police, or even daily routines for fear of being detained. This chronic fear leads to severe mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Children suffer deeply, especially those born in the U.S. or growing up in mixed-status families, facing stress, confusion, and a sense of instability that impacts their mental health, education, and trust in institutions.
If deportation becomes a reality, the trauma only deepens. Haiti faces extreme instability, with gang violence, unemployment, lack of healthcare, and housing crises. Deportees often return without support, facing danger, poverty, and exclusion. Many are treated as outsiders for their appearance, language, or unfamiliarity with Haitian life, leaving them feeling rejected and rootless. These emotional wounds affect entire families and communities, spreading trauma across generations. The psychological damage of deportation is as severe as the legal consequences and should be treated with the same urgency. Real solutions must prioritize support and compassion over punishment.
It’s critical to offer reintegration programs for those returning to Haiti, including counseling, housing assistance, job training, and community support to prevent further trauma and displacement. Most importantly, policies must reflect compassion and aim to keep families together, allowing individuals to build safe, stable lives without the constant threat of separation. We cannot address this humanitarian crisis with fear and punishment; healing begins with care, understanding, and the recognition that these human beings deserve dignity, safety, and a chance to thrive.
Possible Solution
Progress starts with solidarity. Genuine unity necessitates foresight and attentiveness: a shared objective to motivate and the determination to eliminate obstacles impeding progress. Haitians must unite under definitive leadership and a common cause that resonates spiritually, mentally, and socially to inspire collective courage. However, no plan can succeed without addressing the factors of division and instability that jeopardize its implementation. Therefore, uniting must also mean reclaiming authority over our neighborhoods from white collar criminals and gang-related activities.
Lobbying and advocacy
Many ideas for solutions focus on what can be done when expats go back to Haiti. However, the most comprehensive first step seems to be stopping the deportation of 500,000 people through a broad advocacy and lobbying effort aimed at Congress, the current administration, and the courts. Advocates, Haitian American groups, and allies could get people to support them through media campaigns, protests, and lobbying at the local level. They would need to stress the humanitarian crisis this would create in Haiti by pointing out the country's instability, gang violence, and lack of infrastructure to handle such a large influx.
At the same time, lobbyists would work directly with lawmakers to push for legislative solutions, such as proposing a bill to extend Temporary Protected Status or stopping the sending of people back to Haiti.
Along with these efforts, legal advocacy would happen. Civil rights groups would file lawsuits to stop mass deportations, saying that sending people back to Haiti would be against U.S. responsibilities under international human rights law or would put them in great danger. Also, groups could pressure the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to give more people humanitarian parole or other rights up to the DHS. Advocates could delay or stop deportations while pushing for long-term immigration change to fix the real problems using legislative pressure, executive action, and legal challenges.
Sustainable shelter
To address Haiti’s resettlement challenges, a coordinated program would prioritize durable, anti-seismic, affordable housing units (max four floors for safety) in strategic urban and rural zones to prevent overcrowding and internal displacement. Returnees with construction skills could help build these units, paired with infrastructure upgrades (water, 
roads, electricity). Partnerships with NGOs, diaspora investors, and the Haitian government would ensure funding, while decentralizing development to secondary cities (Cap-Haïtien, Les Cayes, Jacmel) would alleviate slum growth in Port-au-Prince, turning resettlement into sustainable community-building.
Diaspora-led initiatives could create small businesses or cooperatives, fostering local employment. However, Haiti’s government cannot launch large-scale employment projects without significant foreign aid.
Recommended Solution
The government could create a jobs program for 10,000 returning Haitians and assign them to large-scale temporary infrastructure projects in their homeland. Since many TPS holders have experience in construction, healthcare, and trades, their skills could aid in rebuilding the country.
A temporary massive jobs program hiring so many people would require massive transparency efforts, logistical coordination, and anti-corruption measures, something Haitian institutions currently struggle with. Skilled deportees could focus on rebuilding infrastructure, strengthening agriculture, and developing renewable energy projects that align with Haiti’s pressing needs, such as construction, engineering, farming, or technical trades.
Some returnees may have already prepared for the departure and might not need assistance with resettling. Some have family members and friends who can offer temporary housing. Others may prefer to return rather than face the humiliation and trauma of fear. This alone will lessen the burden on the organizations that are helping.
The program could be centralized in areas with high economic potential but significant underdevelopment. Urban hubs like Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien could also be key locations for their urban, administrative, and commercial centers. They would offer construction, healthcare, and education opportunities. At the same time, rural and coastal areas like Les Cayes or Jacmel could benefit from eco-tourism and agro-processing initiatives. Gonaïves and the Artibonite valley for their logistics and agricultural potential,
The program would require partnerships between the Haitian government, NGOs, and private investors to ensure training, fair wages, and long-term sustainability. Prioritizing decentralized development outside overcrowded Port-au-Prince could reduce urban strain and branch into regional growth.
The Haitian government must increase transparency to attract donors. Start with pilot projects before expanding. We must learn from past mistakes involving fraud and unproductive spending of collected funds. This requires strong, transparent, and accountable oversight. A precise mechanism for punitive measures must be established and communicated to prevent the mishandling of funds, as proven by an accounting audit.
Possible outcome
Even the best ideas will fail without planning, funding, and stability. It’s time to shift from anger to action before the crisis arrives.
Setting up a large-scale temporary jobs program for returnees in Haiti could help strengthen the country by giving people jobs right away, lowering poverty, and discouraging people from leaving again. Implementing this program correctly could help rebuild the infrastructure, grow farms, and improve public services. This would help Haiti's ongoing labor problems by giving people who have returned to useful jobs. By giving deportees fair pay and skill training, such a program could help the economy grow, make it easier for them to rejoin society, and lower the anger often directed at them. But for it to work, there must be strong government guidance, steps to fight corruption, and money from outside the country. Without these parts, the program could fail, making things worse for people returning and leading to even more chaos.
Team HAMREC