Sept. 21 (UPI) — Human Rights Watch called on the United States to suspend deportations to Haiti, warning that hundreds of people have been returned to a country that is experiencing widespread criminal violence, hunger and limited capacity to receive and assist them.

The organization said in a statement Monday that more than 450 Haitians have been deported from the United States since July, when Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, ended for about 330,000 Haitians. Many of those deported had lived in the United States for years and some said they had pending asylum applications.

“The United States is sending people, some with pending asylum claims, to a country that has no capacity to protect them from violence, much less help them find food and shelter,” said Nathalye Cotrino, senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Americas Division.

The group documented a sharp increase in deportations after TPS ended. Between Aug. 20 and Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent five flights carrying 474 people to Cap-Haitien, a city on Haiti’s northern coast whose population has tripled amid rising criminal violence and hunger across the country.

Previously, the United States operated about one deportation flight to Haiti per month.

Most of the people interviewed by Human Rights watch said they fled Haiti because of the country’s prolonged security and humanitarian crises, which have worsened over the years.

Some left after the devastating 2010 earthquake, but most departed after the 2021 assassination of then-President Jovenel Moïse and the deepening violence and instability that followed.

Cap-Haitien has become the main arrival point for deportation flights because the airport in Port-au-Prince is considered unsafe. In early September, the Federal Aviation Administration extended until March 2, 2027, restrictions barring U.S. commercial operators and U.S.-registered civil aircraft from flying below 10,000 feet over Port-au-Prince.

The deportations come as Haiti’s security crisis continues to worsen. According to United Nations data cited by Human Rights Watch, at least 3,050 people were killed in Haitian violence during the first six months of this year. Nearly 1.5 million people are internally displaced and more than half of Haiti’s population needs humanitarian assistance.

The organization also said that despite the partial deployment in April of a U.N.-authorized force to combat criminal groups, those groups have expanded their operations beyond Port-au-Prince into rural communities in at least five of Haiti’s 10 departments.

Human Rights Watch urged the U.S. government to halt deportations while conditions make returns unsafe. It also called on the Senate to approve legislation already passed by the House that would extend TPS for Haitians through 2029.