Why Should Delaware Care?
Temporary Protected Status is a federal, humanitarian program aimed at protecting individuals from countries deemed unsafe. The Trump Administration has been ending such protections for individuals from several countries, most recently Syria and Haiti. With those protections now gone, Delaware’s Haitian community, which nears 5,000 people, has been left reeling.
For a Haitian mother of three living in Dover, the past two months have been full of fear and uncertainty.
She lost her work permit, her driver’s license and protection from deportation all with a single Supreme Court decision.
The woman, who spoke to Spotlight Delaware on the condition of anonymity, was living in Delaware under the U.S. government’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, a federal immigration policy that allows those residing in countries deemed to be unsafe, to live and work in the U.S. temporarily.
But since that program ended for several countries earlier this summer, the future for Delaware’s TPS holders has become much less clear.
“A bunch of us have already bought a home and bought a car and have several businesses,” the woman said. “I know it may sound dumb since we are going through all that, but if we weren’t comfortable in the country, we wouldn’t do all of that. I believe this is not fair because we’re here without hurting anyone.”
A country may fall under TPS protections for undergoing a civil war, extraordinary conflict or some kind of major environmental disaster. Protections can last for up to 18 months, and can be extended. Individuals in qualifying countries can apply to enter the U.S. and obtain a work permit.
Until last month, that list of countries included Haiti. But a Supreme Court decision issued in June allowed the Trump administration to remove both Haiti and Syria from its list of TPS designees. Currently, only citizens in four countries — El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine – qualify for TPS.
That June Supreme Court ruling has called the future into question for the more than 350,000 Haitians living in the U.S. — including nearly 5,000 of those in Delaware.
A disruption of day-to-day life
Guy Danjoint, a pastor at the Haitian Evangelical International Ministries Church in Dover, spent his evenings last week driving across the Delaware-Maryland border to bring groceries to Haitian homes.
Many immigrants fear that being caught driving will lead to their deportation, Danjoint said.
This reality has changed the shopping habits of local Haitians, said one local Caribbean food store owner in Southern Delaware, who spoke to Spotlight Delaware on the condition of anonymity. Her storefront would attract an average of about 300 customers per week.
Now that number has dwindled to just a handful.
“They’re going hungry now,” she said.
Along with delivering groceries, Danjoint said he is advising former TPS holders against attempting to go back to work.
“You can’t,” he said. “If you do that, it’s going to be worse. Because what happens? If they catch you, you will never, never be able to get a green card here in this country.”
The Dover-area mother said her day-to-day life has been marked by both a financial and mental strain since losing federal protections.
She has been living in the country for seven years, and she has been in central Delaware for six. She settled in the state with her husband, and the couple has since had three children.
Despite her kids being U.S. citizens, the woman said she and her husband fear sending them to school.
She said she does not know what will come next, but that ultimately her family is likely to return to Haiti.
Spotlight Delaware previously reported about Haitian immigrants leaving the U.S. for Canada in the wake of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, but the Dover woman said she is not sure if that is an option.
She said she would rather move back to her home country than start from scratch again somewhere completely new.
For Haitians who were living in America under TPS, relocating to Canada also comes with its own struggles. Agreements between the U.S. and Canada prevent Haitian immigrants from immediately seeking refugee status after arriving there if they first passed through America.
Immigrants would need to remain in Canada illegally for 14 days without being detected before they could then apply for refugee status there.
Trying to keep the lights on
For the past eight years, Danjoint’s church has not only served as a place of worship but also as a home for Haitians.
He cooks spaghetti on Sundays for children and supports the church’s choir and youth group. But it is getting harder and harder to build that home for his community.
Last week, the church held a concert that normally would have brought in up to 100 attendees. Events typically become so full that people are standing around the chairs, leaning on doors and trying to squeeze inside the church.
But only around 20 people showed up that day.
“We got people from New York and Florida, some artists, and some from Silver Spring, Maryland,” Danjoint said. “They were here, but we didn’t have enough people.”
After years of working multiple jobs and trying to outsource the money to find a location for the church, Danjoint said it saddens him to see that laws can have this much impact on the livelihood of his place of worship.
But he remains optimistic because if he survived during the COVID pandemic, he said his community will do it again.
The grocery store owner, however, is less optimistic.
“It’s so sad,” she said. “Where am I going to find the money to pay my bills?”
How did we get here?
Humanitarian relief programs have long existed in the U.S. As different presidential administrations have come and gone, designations and eligibility criteria have changed.
TPS Timeline by Elsa KegelmanFritz Lamour is an accountant who has been here since the 1980s, like Danjoint. He has seen the push and pull of TPS designations for Haitians for several years now.
“When the government cuts the TPS, for one part I’m happy because it seems like they were ripping off these people,” he said. “It helps them work, but it is a rip off too.”
Instead, he would like to see a reform to the system. He knows TPS is only a temporary program, and he said he has heard of lawyers not letting their TPS clients know they can attempt to obtain a permanent immigration status instead of renewing TPS every two years.
“People on TPS, they buy houses, they pay taxes,” Lamour said. “Come on, you have to give them something too.”
Is returning to Haiti an option?
Lesly Marcelin, a Haitian pastor at Delaware Gospel Assembly Ministry, said self-deporting is not an option for some TPS holders.
“That’s why people willingly suffer. Some of them suffer here. They cannot go back because they don’t have no place to go,” he said. “Some houses the gangs take over, they place people out of their own home.”
The main issue, Danjoint and Lamour said, is arriving at Haiti’s airport safely.
The Federal Aviation Administration has banned U.S. commercial flights to Haiti’s capital through Sept. 3, 2026, ignited by gangs opening fire at the Port-au-Prince airport.
Haiti also is under a “do not travel” advisory by the U.S. Department of State due to risk of “crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, and limited health care.”
Tensions in Haiti are at a political high point currently because the country is set to hold elections for the first time since then-President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by a group of mercenaries in 2021.
Since then, Haiti has had no president. Armed gangs have taken over the country’s capital along with some of its rural areas. This leaves civilians at risk of being kidnapped or killed or dealing with loss of access to resources like healthcare, according to The Haitian Times.
What comes next?
Emily Houde, supervising attorney at the Community Legal Aid Society’s immigration unit, is working on letting people know their rights if they get detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or determine what other legal protections exist now the TPS has largely been rolled back.
But it is not easy.
“We are sure that there are more people who probably qualify for our services that we just haven’t been able to reach or haven’t felt comfortable coming forward,” Houde said.
For now, Danjoint is working with other pastors to encourage local and state leaders to push Congress to continue the TPS program.
He also said he is working to open up a food pantry at his church and will continue to deliver groceries to his community.
“But we don’t want people to be too sad about what is happening,” Danjoint said. “We want them to enjoy and stuff like that, but the reality is the reality.”
There is a Senate bill currently on the floor to extend TPS protections for Haitians until 2029, though it is unlikely to move forward because it is currently only supported by Democrats. Delaware Sens. Chris Coons and Lisa Blunt Rochester are among the co-sponsors of the bill.
With Haiti’s TPS designation removed, uncertainty remains for the Delaware Haitians who were living under the program.
“We didn’t think it was gonna go like that, so we are not so sure of what to do,” the Dover-area mother said. “But we have to come up with a plan because it’s not getting any better.”
