Opinion | Haiti Needs Stability, Not Mass Deportations

The United States is locked in a dangerous, self-defeating paradox in its policy toward Haiti. Last month, the Supreme Court cleared the path for the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status for more than 330,000 Haitians who have legally resided, worked and built lives across America. The administration claims that conditions in Haiti have stabilized enough for their return. For American citizens, though, the State Department has maintained a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory for Haiti, citing gang violence, kidnappings and widespread instability.

Haiti is indeed near total state collapse. Decades of compounding disasters — including devastating earthquakes and political vacuums — have left the central government virtually nonfunctional. Since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, armed gangs have come to dominate an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and wide swathes of the country, controlling access to commerce and humanitarian aid, paralyzing basic government operations and displacing more than a million people.

As someone who has spent a lifetime managing complex logistics and command structures in disaster zones, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and international relief operations across the Caribbean, I can tell you plainly: You cannot stabilize a community in crisis by further collapsing its economic and social foundations.

Over the past several years, I have served as a volunteer adviser to Haitian diaspora leaders and civic organizations based in both the United States and Haiti. I have witnessed their efforts to strengthen Haiti’s democratic institutions, support humanitarian initiatives, advocate responsible governance and invest in Haiti’s long-term recovery. Haiti’s instability is not for want of their efforts to build a functioning state; it is in large part a result of failed policy on the part of the international community.

For years, the international strategy toward Haiti has relied on reactive, short-term fixes to systemic problems. As public order in Haiti has broken down, Washington and its partners have routinely turned to foreign forces, including a Kenyan-led security mission; targeted sanctions; and piecemeal aid. This is an approach intended to treat the symptoms of state collapse rather than build the long-term capacity of Haitian institutions and security forces.

During the deployment of the Kenyan-led mission, which began in June 2024, I spoke directly with its leader, Godfrey Otunge, on several occasions. The mission was intended to reinforce the Haitian National Police and help create conditions for governance and elections. But Commander Otunge confirmed to me what many military professionals already recognized: The mission was understaffed and underresourced and lacked the tactical assets it needed. Predictably, the force was unable to halt gang expansion.

In light of the failures of the Kenyan-led mission, the U.N. Security Council has authorized the deployment of a new, international Gang Suppression Force — an offensive, intelligence-driven mission that will more explicitly aim to take the fight to the gangs. But if the new force is not adequately equipped or integrated into a broader Haitian-led strategy, it risks repeating the same mistakes as the last intervention. And merely replacing one temporary foreign force with another will not save Haiti.

What Haiti really needs are the institutions of a sovereign nation: a professional police force, a capable national army and the resources to secure its territory. Lasting stability cannot be imported. It must be built and sustained by Haitians.

That goal faces two major obstacles in Washington.

The first is the stranglehold on security assistance. Because of restrictions such as the Leahy Law, which bars U.S. assistance to foreign security units credibly implicated in human rights violations, even vetted Haitian forces are often prevented from receiving the critical equipment and support they require. Haitian security forces are effectively being asked to reclaim their country with one hand tied behind their backs.

The second is the continued uncertainty surrounding Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. The Department of Homeland Security recently extended employment authorization for Haitian T.P.S. beneficiaries through Friday as a result of ongoing litigation and may well extend it again. But regardless of the exact date, it’s clear that Haiti’s security, governance and humanitarian crises will not be resolved by the time current protections expire — and especially not while deportation flights continue to return migrants to an active war zone.

Forcing hundreds of thousands of people into the shadows or onto deportation flights to a volatile nation still consumed by violence and political instability would only feed the chaos. It would risk worsening Haiti’s humanitarian crisis, sever the remittances that sustain families in Haiti and expanding the recruitment pool for the gangs the international community is trying to defeat.

Ending Temporary Protected Status for the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who have made homes in the United States will have repercussions far beyond Haiti. Haitians with protected status contribute billions annually to the U.S. economy, pay federal, state and local taxes, and fill essential jobs across multiple industries. Many of them work as nursing assistants, home health aides, caregivers and other frontline health care professionals, supporting a health care system already facing severe work force shortages.

Temporary Protected Status was never intended to become permanent, nor was it intended to expire while the conditions that justified it continued to exist. If T.P.S. ends for Haitians, what legal pathway exists for these law-abiding individuals? How does forcing them into legal uncertainty or deportation make either the United States or Haiti more secure?

If the United States genuinely wants to reduce regional instability and unauthorized migration, it must stop pursuing policies that deepen Haiti’s emergency. Congress should enact a durable legislative solution for Haitian T.P.S. holders, and the Trump administration should remove unnecessary barriers preventing Haiti from building the security capacity every sovereign nation requires.

It is still possible for Haiti to move from crisis toward sovereign democracy. And Washington can still choose to be a strategic partner of Haiti rather than an architect of its collapse.

Russel Honoré was commanding general of the U.S. First Army from 2004 to 2008 and led Task Force Katrina after the devastation of New Orleans.

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