Originally published in The Boston Globe.
The stories of fear came from various corners: A bus driver and father of three who lives in Brockton. A local pharmaceutical student. A former airport worker who now drives for Uber.
For all those Haitian immigrants, Feb. 3 looms large, they said Tuesday during a question-and-answer session conducted by local politicians. That’s when their temporary protected status, or TPS, expires, which would potentially throw them into an immigration limbo. They wonder: Will they be able to work legally? Will they be able to gain asylum status? Will they be sent to a country riven by gang violence and civil unrest?
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Davidson, a Haitian TPS holder speaking at the event also attended bycommunity leaders Tuesday morning at the Jubilee Church in Mattapan. He was among those on Tuesday to give either a pseudonym or only their first name for fear of being targeted by immigration authorities.
Protected status shields immigrants from deportation and grants them work permits. It is reserved for people fleeing countries in upheaval. An estimated 45,000 Massachusetts residents are Haitians who have TPS status, according to US Representative Ayanna Pressley, who hosted the discussion, and Greater Boston is home to the third-largest Haitian community in the country.
Revocation of TPS status will throw untold number of families into chaos and harm the economy, advocates and business leaders said. Locally, the health care, restaurant, and transportation sectors could be thrown into disarray if the status is not extended, they said.
Like other testimonies shared at the Mattapan meeting, Davidson, who is studying medicine, has questions about his ability to work legally after Feb. 3. He said the federal decision to terminate TPS for Haitians is “very, very stressful.”
Another Haitian TPS holder, who identified himself as Bruno, said he drives a bus for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. His boss has already asked him for additional documentation showing he can work here legally. He has three sons. The youngest is an American citizen and attends high school. He said there is “nothing” for his family to return to in Haiti.
“It is unsafe, unstable,” he said.
Indeed, advocates and community leaders blasted what they considered to be cruel hypocrisy of President Trump’s administration. Trump officials have advised Americans to avoid traveling to Haiti because of the gang-related chaos there, but the same government is apparently willing to send Haitians back to such violence, many pointed out.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to carry out mass deportations and he has doubled down on that promise while in the White House.
In federal court, advocates have challenged the decision to end TPS for Haitians. Over the past 15 years, the government has extended the status multiple times.
Tuesday’s event was hosted by Pressley, a Boston Democrat. It was attended by two other members of the US Massachusetts delegation who are currently locked in a primary battle: Senator Ed Markey of Malden and his challenger, Representative Seth Moulton of Salem.
Pressley ripped into the federal government’s treatment of Haitian immigrants, saying that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is cruel and incompetent.
“She needs to resign or be impeached,” she said. Pressley also called for the abolition of Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.
A message left with ICE was not returned Tuesday.
Both Markey and Moulton argued the decision to terminate TPS for Haitians is grounded in racism.
“ICE has become the very criminals they were supposed to be arresting,” said Markey.
Moulton said ending the TPS policy for Haitians will result in “pain and persecution in the name of power.”
“It will devastate the Haitian community,” and its ripple effect will harm wider communities, he said.
In downtown Boston on Tuesday, there were similar sentiments at a roundtable discussion led by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who has filed several briefs supporting challenges to orders terminating temporary protected status for Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants.
“Our goal is not only to continue to protect our people, but to do so with the sense of urgency it deserves, with compassion and empathy,” Campbell said.
There, Charline Melon, the adult education coordinator at the Association of Haitian Women in Boston, said Haitian immigrants her organization serves have grown increasingly fearful.
Clients, she said, are worried about leaving their homes and being detained or losing businesses they spent years building in the United States. One client told her that “if they see a truck, they are afraid — they’re ducking, they’re running, they have paranoia.”
Back in Mattapan, the Rev. Eno Mondesir, senior pastor at the Haitian Baptist Church of Cambridge, echoed those concerns. He said he knows a minister who is a TPS holder who is apprehensive about going out in public, but who still makes sure to attend church services. Such fear is palpable, according to Mondesir, who said rumors continuously swirl of ICE agents poised to “infest the community.”
“TPS elimination has brought trouble,” he said.
The Rev. Myrlande DesRosiers, a pastor and the director of the Everett Haitian Community Center, lamented the cruelty of the decision to revoke TPS status for Haitians, saying for such individuals it appears that “every single (immigration) option is blocked.”
“There’s no way out,” she said.
By Danny McDonald. Anjail Huynh of the Globe staff contributed to this report.