The majority of migrants arrived after months of overland travel from Brazil and Chile, where many were granted permission to reside and work after an earthquake struck the country in 2010. The economies of these countries were hit by the pandemic. To help Haitian returnees who have not lived in the country for years, nonprofits and some US officials will be stationed at Port-au-Prince airport to welcome migrants as they disembark, said the manager.

People who have been firmly resettled in another country are not eligible for asylum in the United States, suggesting that many Haitians at the border would find it difficult to secure their protection claims in the United States unless that they could not prove that they were being subjected to violence.

However, defenders accused the United States of violating international law by deporting people without properly screening them to determine whether they could reasonably claim to fear returning home. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to whether this was the policy. Hundreds of people said they were afraid on Saturday and were not put on hold for deportation, the official said.

“Part of the problem is that there are a lot of Haitians who come with a whole bunch of statuses,” said Yael Schacher, senior US lawyer for Refugees International, a nonprofit.

Yet she and others have sharply criticized the United States for sending people back to Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, plunged into crisis this summer by a natural disaster and the murder of its president.

“Haitians are living crisis after crisis and deserve compassion,” said Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, said on Twitter on Saturday. “Instead of stepping up the evictions, we should end them. It is shameful that, from administration to administration, our cruel immigration policies persist.

Recognizing the difficult conditions in Haiti, the Biden administration recently granted temporary deportation assistance to approximately 150,000 Haitians already living in the United States, granting them temporary protection status. But tens of thousands of people have tried to cross the country since then, despite not qualifying for the program, which covers those who entered before July 29, before the recent earthquake.