Marie, a Worcester-area resident, dreads Feb. 3.
The single mother of three children, all U.S. citizens, relies on a work permit allowed by her immigration status, but that is in limbo.
Marie is one of at least 19,000 Haitians in Massachusetts who will lose temporary protected status, or TPS, on Feb. 3 as the Trump administration continues to restrict legal residency for millions of immigrants. GBH News is only using Marie’s first name due to her fear of deportation.
“What is my worst fear is, if I have to leave them, if I have to go back to Haiti. I can’t even begin to think about that,” she said of her concerns of being detained without legal status. “Now what I’m thinking about is not being able to provide for them.” Marie worries about being unable to afford their apartment, groceries, education and other necessities. She isn’t alone.
Greater Boston has the nation’s third-largest Haitian population behind Florida, according to World Population Review’s 2023 data.
Temporary protected status allows immigrants from designated countries to live in the U.S. for up to 18 months when their country is unsafe to return to. Anyone from those countries can apply if they’re in the U.S. since a designated date. Those designations can be extended, and immigrants can apply for renewal. The Department of Homeland Security has voided designations for at least 10 countries.
Fears of deportation
Marie has a 21-year-old daughter in college and two teenagers. She works at a daycare center, but would lose her work permit after the status is terminated, similar to immigrants in other statuses that have suddenly become undocumented.
She came to the U.S. in the late 1990s as violence increased in Haiti. She remembers trying to sleep at night and hearing gunshots constantly.
“You ask yourself, 'Are they going to come for me? Are they going to come into our home?’” she said. Marie fled soon after with her parents, and eventually gained temporary protected status in 2011, the year after it became an option.
The fear is tangible at the Immigrant Family Services Institute in Mattapan, which has helped an unprecedented number of Haitians who fled to Massachusetts.
Dr. Geralde Gabeau, executive director there, recounted a conversation she had recently with a client.
“They asked, 'What’s going to happen to my house? Now, if I’m going to lose my work permit and I cannot work, how am I going to pay for my mortgage?’” said Gabeau. “We hear it from others who say, 'How I am going to be able to keep my rent?’ So at every single aspect, people are so worried that it is becoming a real crisis.”
Ann is a 19-year-old UMass Boston student who is currently not attending school due to her fears of being detained by ICE. GBH News is using a pseudonym due to her fears of being arrested and deported.
“My life right now is stay home, watch movies, and then pray to God. I’m praying that a judge can help us get the TPS extended,” she said.
She came to the US with her family in 2023 due to kidnappings and gang violence in the town she lived in. She and four other members of her family have TPS, and are slated to lose it on Feb. 3. Ann said she has a lot of anxiety around being detained because she’s read about conditions at detention centers.
“I don’t want to die there,” she said. Ann had a seasonal job, but is now afraid to apply to a job with her work permit for fear of ICE obtaining her address.
“I’m just scared,” she said. “Very scared.”
Impact of termination, and actions to stop it
Last year, the Trump administration moved to terminate TPS for Haiti early, instead of its original end date. A New York judge blocked that effort. Instead, the government issued a Federal Register notice saying the protections would expire in February 2026, and that the country no longer met the conditions to continue it.
In Washington D.C., District Court Judge Ana C. Reyes heard arguments in early January on the termination. Reyes asked the administration how it could allow Haitians to be removed to the country if it has also decided it’s unsafe to travel there.
“Can you explain to me how it’s safe to return to a country or live in a country when it’s not even safe to fly into that country?” she asked. Armed gangs control major parts of the country, leading the State Department under Sec. Marco Rubio to issue a do-not-travel advisory last year. Reyes is expected to rule on whether to pause the termination from going into effect. The government could appeal her order.
At-large Boston City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, has followed the legal battle.
“We are putting, hopefully, a lot of faith in the federal court’s opinion and also in... pressure for the Trump administration to do the right thing,” she said.
In December, she sponsored a city council resolution condemning the termination of TPS, saying that the change could impact “thousands” in Boston. It passed unanimously.
“I just was texting with a constituent who told me that she was telling someone about her story and what might happen, and she just couldn’t stop from crying. So there’s a lot fear,” Louijeune said.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley in December filed a bill that would require Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to designate Haiti for temporary protected status until spring 2029.
“Our Haitian neighbors are deeply rooted in our communities and essential to our economy,” she said in a statement. “They are parents, workers, faith leaders, and caregivers who have served as a backbone for families in need and through the hardest of times, caring for our elders in the twilight of their lives and for our loved ones battling illness.”
Pressley said extending TPS for Haiti isn’t just the “moral” thing to do, it ensures Haitians can continue to work in the elder and health care communities, which rely heavily on Haitians and are strained for staff.
Pressley held an in-district hearing last week about what impact termination would have, which included immigrants affected by the change as well as elected leaders and community members. Industry leaders also spoke out about what losing the Haitian workforce could mean.
“If TPS is terminated, the damage will be immediate,” said Jen Ziskin, executive director of Massachusetts Restaurants United. “Restaurants will lose staff they cannot replace. Hours will be cut, prices will rise, and closures will follow. And because Haitians work throughout the food system, in farming, processing, distribution and delivery, the consequences spread far beyond restaurants.”
The foreign-born make up nearly 22% of Massachusetts’ workforce, but account for nearly 39% of health aides. Many are Haitian.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, many caretakers left the workforce, according to Colin O’Leary, executive director of the Laurel Ridge Rehabilitation & Skilled Care Center, a nonprofit nursing home in Jamaica Plain.
“Over the past few years, we have been able to slowly regrow our workforce and are now in a more healthy, but still precarious, staffing position,” he said at the Mattapan event. “ With the loss of our TPS employees, Laurel Ridge is looking at losing 40% of its dietary aids and, more concerningly, 15% of the certified nursing assistant workforce.” The job requires a personal relationship between staff and residents, and if those relationships are lost, residents suffer, he said.
Marvin Mathelier is a Marine Corps veteran, small business owner, and community leader in Boston. His parents moved from Haiti to New York in the 1980s, during the Duvalier dictatorship.
He was born in Brooklyn and eventually moved to Massachusetts. In 2021, after a devastating earthquake, he returned to Haiti for United States Southern Command for the Department of Defense, focusing on crisis action. Through his experiences, he has a deep understanding of what’s at stake with the termination of the status.
“We could potentially be sending back 350,000 Haitians to a destabilized country that is being overrun by gangs that are doing some really heinous crimes,” Mathelier said. “We’re forcing them back to country that is that will continue to be destabilized. That’s a human rights violation of our own doing.”
Mathelier is launching virtual phone banks for people to call Congress and ask legislators to co-sponsor Pressley’s bill and extend TPS. As co-owner of Ula Cafe in Jamaica Plain, he’s also hosting an in-person phone bank Friday afternoon and early evening.
It is unclear if legislation or a judge’s order could allow for an extension for Haitians before Feb. 3.
Meanwhile, Marie feels the weight of the world on her shoulders as she contemplates living without status or a work permit.
‘“There’s a Haitian saying that says, 'You call and then you answer,”’ she said. “So that’s me. I call and I answer back, because I have nobody to answer when I call. Everything is on me, so that makes it harder.”
