RUSSO (Host Intro): Immigrant workers from Haiti who labor in the Eastern Shores' poultry plants and other industries face a February 3rd deadline under a new Trump administration rule. I'm Bryan Russo. For many, it marks the end of their legal status in the US and ends their authorization to work here. But as Delmarva Public Media's, Kevin Diaz recently found out, this has upended many in the tight-knit local Haitian community.
DIAZ: The biblical story of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar has a special resonance inside the Church of the Nazarene in Seaford. This congregation of French and Creole-speaking immigrants from Haiti is hoping for deliverance from a modern ruler who wants to expel them from the country.
PASTOR PHILIP: They have to keep the focus on God because no matter the situation that we are facing, god is always with us.
DIAZ: That's Pastor Philip from the Church of the Nazarene. Many of his parishioners have been in the states for years, legally, under a program called Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. They're dressed in their Sunday finery. Little girls in frilly skirts, boys wearing crisp suit jackets. Many of the breadwinners in their families rely on TPS to get work permits for jobs in the regions' chicken plants, hotels, and other places. But those arrangements are coming to an end. In July, the Trump administration ended the TPS program for Haitian immigrants. [There are] more than 20,000 of them in Maryland and many of them working in the Eastern Shores poultry industry. Their TPS designation and their work permits expire on February 3rd, 2026. With the deadline approaching, that makes this Christmas season a time of reckoning.
PASTOR PHILIP: We have a lot of family friends who affected by this problem and some of them who have been having TPS for 20 years or more. This administration is taking to revoke [that], and will cause a big blow to the community. So hopefully this administration will change their mind.
DIAZ: The congregation is on edge these days. When I enter the Sunday service, I'm immediately approached by young man inquiring who I am. He points me to another man named Evan, who doesn't want his full name on the radio.
EVAN: It's really frustrating. They're trying to do the best to keep calm, but in the meantime, they want to work. They like good workers. They want to work. They want make it like living so they can pay the bills and be a good contribution to the country. But after the government decision on February 3rd, nobody knows what's going to happen.
DIAZ: The effects, Evan says, are already being felt.
EVAN: There are some people actually already been laid off or actually fired because of their work permit. Most of the companies start sending people home. If you don't have that much, that's what I believe. If you don't have that much time left on your work permit, the company making decision out in order to comply to the government and sending people home.
DIAZ: After the service. I talked to Pastor Philip. The options he says aren't great.
PASTOR PHILIP it is unfair. It is unfair and confusing.
DIAZ: In a statement in November, the Trump administration announced that Haiti no longer meets the statutory requirements for TPS. Allowing Haitian immigrants to remain here, the administration said, is inconsistent with the US national security interests.
RAYMOND: So my question for them would be, how or what criteria do they have in place to determine that countries such as Haiti does not meet the criteria?
DIAZ: That's Kenson Raymond, an immigration counselor with the Word of Life church in Salisbury. He says, moving to Haiti, much of it desperately poor and ruled by gang is not an option for these people.
RAYMOND: Once you remove that status, they're no longer all protected. So sending them back would end up sending them back to whatever fear that or persecution that they were enduring at the home country.
DIAZ: There have been court challenges, but barring some legal miracle, the future for these parishioners is very uncertain.
RAYMOND: I love this country. This is the country I pretty much grew up [in] since I was about 11 years old. I have never seen this America in this state that we are in right now. And right now, honestly, I'm very frustrated. Not for myself, but for a lot of folks that come to me seeking answers.
DIAZ: Are they scared?
RAYMOND: Absolutely.
DIAZ: For Delmarva Public Media, this is Kevin Diaz on the Eastern Shore in Seaford, Delaware.
