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Seven days after giving birth to a son in Salisbury, Maryland, immigration authorities took away 27-year-old Emane Alexandre’s husband following a scheduled court appearance for their pending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and asylum applications.  

This form of government protection, granted by the Department of Homeland Security, is issued to immigrants who are unable to safely return to their home countries due to armed conflict, an environmental disaster, an epidemic, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. TPS was established for Haitians 16 years ago, following the devastating 2010 Earthquake in Haiti that killed hundreds of thousands. 

There are approximately 350,000 Haitians with TPS in the U.S., and more than 20,000 Haitians on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. President Donald Trump has attempted to end TPS for multiple countries—including Haiti. TPS expired for the country on Feb. 3, though it was temporarily stayed by a federal judge. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene, and now, thousands of families are in limbo as they await the court’s decision this month in Miot v. Trump. 

Not only does Alexandre’s fate in the U.S. rest with the stacked Supreme Court, but so does her son’s. The court will also issue a decision this month on birthright citizenship, determining whether the children of newly arrived undocumented parents are U.S. citizens. 

The administration’s ongoing xenophobic attacks have wreaked havoc on immigrant communities. This is especially true for Haitians, who found legal protection in the U.S. and whose futures in the country are now uncertain. 

“The immigration system is slavery”

In October 2023, Alexandre fled her home in the Haitian-Dominican border town of Ouanaminthe, where the Earth is hot and the Dajabon River, also known as the Massacre River, separates the two countries. She left following an armed attack that destroyed her clothing business. Kidnapped, violated, and scared for her life, she felt unsafe staying in the country. Violence continues to roil the region. In February, four decapitated Haitian women were found along the border in Ouanaminthe.

Like many migrants from across the world, Alexandre made her way to Mexico in 2023 in hopes of requesting asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. This is where she met Wesley Pericles, who made the trek up from Chile. The couple was stuck in Mexico for close to a year waiting for an asylum appointment. Eventually, Alexandre and Pericles were paroled into Texas on Christmas Eve 2024 to await their asylum hearing in the U.S. Alexandre was six months pregnant at the time. “I was finally able to take a breath,” she said.

They immediately made their way to Salisbury, where Pericles had a friend working in a poultry processing plant, a $4.6 billion industry that has shaped the region. Along the Eastern Shore, a coastal region that includes Delaware, Maryland, and parts of Virginia, industrial poultry farms and processing plants dot the landscape, creating company towns. Historically, the region was a hub for slavery. It was also the birthplace of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, and a throughway for the Underground Railroad. Today, more than two-thirds of workers in meat and poultry processing industries are Black or Latinx and an estimated 40% to 50% are migrants.

Immigrants account for 17% of Maryland’s population, and they are the primary workforce for poultry giants in the region, such as Perdue and Mountaire Farms. In nearby Wicomico and Sussex Counties, the overwhelming majority of residents voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Ronald Cameron, CEO of Mountaire Farms, was a major donor to Trump’s campaign. Last summer, ahead of TPS expiring for Haiti, Mountaire plants laid off TPS workers who did not have a five-year work permit.

Mountaire did not respond to Prism’s request for comment.  

One of Mounaire’s laid-off workers was Jean-Ronald Petit-Frere. In Haiti, the 47-year-old worked as a security guard for a Christian nonprofit. He reported armed group members to the police and he received death threats in return. He fled the port town of Leogane for the Haitian island La Gonave, where he was born. But the threats followed, so he hopped on a container ship to Puerto Rico.  

His cousin was kidnapped, and his 16-year-old daughter was murdered in retribution for his cooperation with police. Four of his children remain in Haiti today. 

After applying for both TPS and asylum, Petit-Frere received a work permit. In 2021, he joined his childhood friend in Salisbury, where he found work at Mountaire in 2022. He worked for the company for three years, earning enough to enroll his children in school in Haiti. He finally felt as if his life was moving forward, but last summer, he received a letter from the government instructing him to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Ultimately, he was given the choice to state his case in front of a judge or self-deport for $1,000. He took his chances in front of a judge and was allowed to remain in the U.S.—for now. 

Soon after his court appearance, Petit-Frere lost his job. Though free, his life still hangs in the balance.  

“I have nowhere else to go,” said Petit-Frere, his voice breaking as he considered the possibility of deportation. “If I go back they will kill me—they will kill my children.”

Another Haitian TPS recipient discarded by Mountaire is Venise Paul. She and her husband, also a Mountaire worker, bought a house in Salisbury in 2023, and their young children go to school in the area. The 40-year-old has lived in the U.S. for 12 years, and she started packing chicken at Mountaire in 2019. In January, she and her husband were laid off, a week apart. She begged Mountaire to let her stay, but management refused. 

“I came here for a better life, I paid taxes, I haven’t done anything bad in the country,” she said. 

Ultimately, whether an immigrant pays taxes or has a clean record has little bearing on whether they become targets for deportation—and this is especially true for Black immigrants under the Trump administration. Trump vowed to carry out mass deportations during his second term, and Black immigrants have been a regular target of the president’s racism and xenophobia.

“If you do not have a green card or citizenship, the immigration system can feel like slavery all over again,” said Dr. Marie D Bernadette Fouché, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consultant and the founder and president of Safe Harbor Circles, an organization that provides support to immigrant communities across Maryland’s Eastern Shore. 

The uptick in local job loss has caused some of Maryland’s migrant workers to become homeless, according to Rebirth, a Haitian nonprofit in Salisbury that supports the immigrant community. As unrest spiked in Haiti in 2024, Rebirth assisted 20-30 new immigrants a day, connecting them to government aid, healthcare, and other services. 

Every Thursday, Rebirth’s founder, Habucuc Petion, and his wife Eddline, open a food bank for the community. The organization’s food bank was packed with community members in February after TPS for Haiti expired. Advocate Kenson Raymond stood at the front of the room and explained their rights in Haitian Creole, while members of the Black immigrants rights organization Haitian Bridge Alliance distributed packets about the Supreme Court’s TPS case and how recipients can prove work authorization in the interim.

In more recent months, the food bank’s attendance has dropped from 300 to 150—not because needs have lessened, but because people are afraid. The organization currently delivers directly to 19 people too scared to leave their homes.

“A lot of people had a few months left on their TPS and [poultry processing plants] let them go,” Petion said. “It’s like they are disposable.”

The court decision pausing the termination of TPS gave some hope they could begin working again. When Paul heard the news, she returned to Mountaire and once again asked for her job back. Again, management said no. Her husband now drives for Uber and the couple relies on food stamps to help feed their children. 

Broadly, the court stay did not result in TPS recipients obtaining new work permit cards, said Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. According to advocates, the uncertainties around TPS are driving the hiring decisions of local poultry processing plants. 

“They don’t want to take the risk to hire or bring back someone who they will have to let go again in a month or two,” Raymond said. 

The targeting of Haitian immigrants in Maryland has made life in the region even more precarious. 

Lyna Cobite, 60, had TPS since 2010 and lived in Salisbury for more than two decades. Her standing as a local, respected tax-paying business owner and mother of two American citizens did not save her from the Trump administration. 

On May 15, Pastor Roosevelt Toussaint of the World of Life Center drove Cobite to what she believed would be a routine immigration appointment. However, Cobite didn’t return from the appointment. ICE detained her, claiming it had no record of her status as a TPS recipient. She was detained in Baltimore. “I feel very bad,” Toussaint said. “I encouraged her to go.”

Cobite’s niece, Patricia Vilacon, fought for her release. “My heart [was] pounding,” said Vilacon, describing the moment she learned her aunt was detained. “I [felt] the same exact pain as when my mom passed.” 

After three days, Cobite was released, though she’s being monitored by ICE. “I just want her to be free,” her niece told Prism.

No safe return 

Apart from video calls, Alexandre hasn’t seen her husband, Pericles, since last May. 

Pericles, 32, was taken by ICE in May 2025 when the Trump administration first rolled out nationwide enforcement operations. Agents detained Pericles at a routine immigration appointment, in violation of basic due process. 

In search of legal support, Alexandre connected with Jozef of Haitian Bridge Alliance. The organization provided three-months of rent assistance and offered a pro-bono lawyer. While tremendously helpful, Alexandre was still distraught. 

The first week following her husband’s detainment, the stress made it difficult for her to breastfeed or to even remember her own name. The trauma of family separation one week after giving birth was too much to bear. 

After Pericles’ detainment, Alexandre was left alone to raise their son while her husband spent a year shuffled between ICE detention centers in Louisiana and New Jersey. While in New Jersey, a judge ordered Pericles’ deportation for Nov. 10, 2025, but it was delayed for months. Living in a cramped cell with more than 100 people, he eventually found himself begging for a flight home. 

“I was suffering from a fever that wouldn’t go away, headache, and a terrible toothache,” he later explained over a WhatsApp video call from Haiti. “I couldn’t eat.” While seemingly innocuous, a toothache can be deadly, given the inadequate healthcare and dire conditions inside detention centers. Earlier this year in Arizona, a detained Haitian man died from an untreated toothache. 

During the first week of 2026, with his hands and legs shackled, ICE deported Pericles to Northern Haiti. In February, Alexandre was issued her own deportation order for March 11, but it was stayed after an emergency appeal by her lawyer. 

In the months since, she received a work permit, but she is too scared to leave her apartment. 

Despite her fear, she is not ready to give up on her dream of reuniting her family in the U.S. Her son, after all, is an American citizen—at least for now. 

The topic of guardianship has become a regular focus of conversation among Haitian TPS recipients. Alexandre recently asked Fouché if she might be her son’s guardian— just in case. 

“I don’t know what to do yet,” Alexandre said. “I would like to work, pay my bills, get my husband back so we can be together again.”

Currently, there is no legal way for Pericles to return to the U.S., and he finds himself displaced in Haiti as well, after armed groups in Artibonite set his parent’s home and small garden on fire. According to the United Nations, the armed group Gran Grif killed upward of 70 people in March as part of a massacre in the area, burning and looting more than 50 homes.

More broadly, Haiti is still reeling from the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, which gave armed groups expansive control of more than 90% of the Haitian capital and national highways connecting the country. Women are at high risk of sexual violence, and more than 1.4 million people have been displaced. In May, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was forced to close a hospital in Port-au-Prince’s Cité Soleil neighborhood after it was flooded with gunshot victims and more than 800 people seeking refuge—a reflection of the healthcare crisis awaiting those sent back. 

“People are risking their lives simply to reach a medical facility,” said MSF U.S. CEO Tirana Hassan in a statement.  

These are the conditions Alexandre and thousands of others are fearful of returning to, and these are the conditions the U.S. government ignores as it deports Haitians such as Pericles. Even the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince remains closed due to armed groups shooting at airliners. Since July 2018, the State Department has given the country a Level 4: Do Not Travel warning, and the U.S. ban on international aviation to the country was recently extended through September. 

Still, deportation flights to Haiti continue.

Editorial Team:

Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor

Lara Witt, Top Editor

Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor

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WTOP’s Tracy Johnke contributed to this report.

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