SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Many Haitians in Florida are scrambling after President Donald Trump canceled two Biden-era programs that gave them temporary legal status. Wilkine Brutus from WLRN in Miami looks at how some in the Haitian community are grappling with what comes next.
UNIDENTIFIED CONGREGATION: (Singing in non-English language).
WILKINE BRUTUS, BYLINE: Congregants at the Notre-Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church in Little Haiti, Miami, are singing "glory to our God in heaven." Haitian Catholic priest Reginald Jean-Mary has been with the church for 25 years. He has seen fewer people attend services recently.
REGINALD JEAN-MARY: If you look at the Mass today, it's a Mass that we have over, like, 1,400 people. We did not have even a thousand people at that Mass. That means people are in hiding and running away.
BRUTUS: He says President Trump's efforts to crack down on immigration and carry out mass deportations have affected the church's education and children's programs.
JEAN-MARY: We are an adult school. We drop to 60 students from 261. The day care center - I don't even know what those parents are doing with the children. They are in hiding.
BRUTUS: The U.N. says politically motivated gang violence has killed over 5,600 people and displaced a million within Haiti. So the Biden administration extended Haiti's TPS until February of 2026. But Trump's secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, set a new termination date for August. That applies to more than half a million Haitians, and even more could be affected by the recent cancellation of a separate humanitarian parole program. We reached out to DHS but have not received a response.
UNIDENTIFIED TPS HOLDER: You know, the illegal immigrants have always been targeted.
BRUTUS: This 39-year-old mother has been a Haitian TPS holder since 2021. We agreed not to use her name because she fears speaking out publicly could affect her immigration status.
UNIDENTIFIED TPS HOLDER: We feel that anybody and everybody is suddenly illegal. You wake up, and then you're suddenly illegal without doing anything illegal.
BRUTUS: She studied law in Haiti and says she can't go back because of fear of violence and a crumbling Haitian justice system. So she feels in limbo.
UNIDENTIFIED TPS HOLDER: So I feel like a lost package in the mail, trying to figure out and, you know, to see the best place to deliver that package.
BRUTUS: So Haitians like her now have to make tough decisions.
GEPSIE METELLUS: People with children who are U.S. born are wondering, what are they going to do with these children?
BRUTUS: That's Gepsie Metellus. She runs the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center. It's a nonprofit servicing immigrants in Miami. She says supporting parents has become a challenge.
METELLUS: Do they make the difficult choice of leaving the child behind? - and, if that's the case, to make sure that they've got all of the necessary legal precautions in place to make sure their children would be protected and cared for?
BRUTUS: Organizations representing Haitian and Venezuelan TPS holders filed a lawsuit earlier this month challenging the federal government's decision to end TPS earlier. Metellus says one argument should be the ongoing political violence.
METELLUS: We are recognizing the surreality of the situation because you're talking about potentially sending someone to a war zone.
BRUTUS: She hopes the lawsuit is successful and gives Haitians more time to prepare for a possible return to Haiti.
For NPR News, I'm Wilkine Brutus in Miami.
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