Roughly 350,000 Haitians living legally in U.S. are affected
Attendance at Sunday’s service at Word of Life Center in Salisbury, Maryland, dropped by more than half, senior pastor Roosevelt Toussaint said. More than 500 people normally would have heard his sermon, which he titled “What to do in a time of crisis.”
The nondenominational congregation also canceled a bridal shower, a yard-sale barbeque, and its English-language classes.
Toussaint said the reason for the empty seats is that many community members are unwilling to venture from their homes, fearing arrests and deportation since the Trump administration moved to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 1 million people from numerous countries. Among those affected are roughly 350,000 Haitians who have been living and working legally in the U.S. for years.
Salisbury, the Eastern Shore’s biggest city, is home to about 33,000 residents, about 10% of them Haitian. Many are employed under TPS as farmworkers, caregivers, and in the poultry plants that are the region’s economic backbone.
For Haitians losing TPS, the choice now is between trying to stay in the U.S. and finding underground work while constantly fearful of being caught by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, or returning to a nation so overwhelmed by gang violence and poverty that some feel deportation is tantamount to a death sentence.
The empty pews in Salisbury follow a legal sequence MSI has covered: the Supreme Court in June ruled 6-3 to permit the administration to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians, a decision that placed the status of more than 350,000 Haitians in jeopardy as reported, and Haitian TPS holders nationwide have said they fear deportation to violence and separation from U.S.-born family members as reported. The sharply reduced Sunday congregation at Word of Life Center is among the first visible effects of that fear in a community where Haitian residents are the region’s workforce.