On weekend mornings, the La Boulangerie Bakery in East Orange, New Jersey, is normally bustling with customers who come for its Haitian baked goods, cookies and coconut sweets.
It was empty Saturday, a day after a Supreme Court ruling made many Haitians and other immigrants who came to the United States legally vulnerable to deportation.
"Look around," said the owner, Rosemond Clerval, 50. "People are afraid."
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to revoke temporary legal status from immigrants who qualified for humanitarian parole under a program that began in 2022 and 2023 under the Biden administration. It allowed certain immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come to the United States and stay for up to two years.
Now, tens of thousands of immigrants who only recently fled instability in their home countries and thought they had found a temporary legal refuge in the United States are facing a daunting, new dilemma.
Where to go from here?
Some were making plans to move to Canada, rather than face being picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Jeffrey Thielman, the president of the International Institute of New England, which works with refugees and immigrants in the Boston area and beyond.
"They're trying to figure out where else they can go," Thielman said. "The bottom line is that these folks can't go back to Haiti."
The largest number of recipients in the program are from Haiti, where gangs are terrorizing the country and have taken over the capital, Port-au-Prince. About 1 million people have fled their homes and hundreds of thousands are living in shelters.
"I don't think it's fair," said Johane Chevrin, 46, a nurse who ate soup from a restaurant in the Haitian business district in Irvington, New Jersey, on Saturday, while waiting to get her hair done nearby. "They didn't come illegally. Where are they going to go now?"
In cities with significant immigrant populations, many people willing to be interviewed and identified were not in danger of deportation themselves as part of the parole program, but shared the anguish of fellow residents who were, and spoke of a larger fear percolating through their communities.
In Irvington, New Jersey, a main street is lined with Haitian-run businesses. But some storefronts have shuttered as fear has spread, said Marie Jean-Francois, 45, one business owner there.
Jean-Francois, who owns a shop selling bedsheets, comforters and curtains, fears her business could be next. People have stopped going outside, she said, let alone shopping for supplies for homes they may not be able to stay in.
"Haitians do a lot of the hard jobs in America," she said. "Why can't we make a living here? Why do you have to push us away?"
She, too, has heard of people planning to leave for Canada -- Montreal has one of the largest Haitian communities outside of Haiti -- though Canadian border officials report that overall asylum applications so far this year are down significantly compared with the same point last year.
Mufalo Chitam, the executive director of the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition, said her group was counseling people against trying to cross the border to Canada.
Some immigrants who crossed there after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January were deported back to the United States or detained, she said. "Word has gone round," she said. "Attempting to cross over is even more risky."
And leaving is not always so simple. "People come here, they establish themselves here, maybe acquire some debt with a car or a home," said Douglas Rossman, a volunteer with AbueNica and Nicaragüenses en el Mundo, two groups that work with Nicaraguan refugees. "No one can just lock their home up and go to the airport. They have to make a plan."
Carl-Henry Joseph, a Haitian real estate agent in Indianapolis who works with many immigrants, said the broader political atmosphere was affecting people's abilities to buy homes, as banks consider whether certain work visas will be allowed to continue in the future.
"I have many transactions that are falling through," he said. "The banks are aware of what is happening and they don't want to approve the loans."
More than 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela had qualified for temporary status under the Biden-era program. Beneficiaries were able to fly directly to the United States and remain for two years if they had passed background checks and secured a U.S. sponsor.
It is unclear how many would be immediately vulnerable to deportation, because some have applied for more permanent status through other means.
The Trump administration has criticized the program as being poorly vetted, contributing to crime and creating competition for American jobs. "With this decision, DHS can once again start removing illegal aliens," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
Many of those affected have only recently come to the United States, enrolled their children in schools and started jobs, said Leonce Jean-Baptiste, the executive director of the Haitian Association of Indiana.
"All of a sudden the questions being put in front of them are, you could self deport, going back to Haiti, or you could stay in the U.S. and be captured by ICE," he said, adding that "the conditions in Haiti are the worst we've ever had."
"There are no good options," he said. "None whatsoever."
It was empty Saturday, a day after a Supreme Court ruling made many Haitians and other immigrants who came to the United States legally vulnerable to deportation.
"Look around," said the owner, Rosemond Clerval, 50. "People are afraid."
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to revoke temporary legal status from immigrants who qualified for humanitarian parole under a program that began in 2022 and 2023 under the Biden administration. It allowed certain immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come to the United States and stay for up to two years.
Now, tens of thousands of immigrants who only recently fled instability in their home countries and thought they had found a temporary legal refuge in the United States are facing a daunting, new dilemma.
Where to go from here?
Some were making plans to move to Canada, rather than face being picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Jeffrey Thielman, the president of the International Institute of New England, which works with refugees and immigrants in the Boston area and beyond.
"They're trying to figure out where else they can go," Thielman said. "The bottom line is that these folks can't go back to Haiti."
The largest number of recipients in the program are from Haiti, where gangs are terrorizing the country and have taken over the capital, Port-au-Prince. About 1 million people have fled their homes and hundreds of thousands are living in shelters.
"I don't think it's fair," said Johane Chevrin, 46, a nurse who ate soup from a restaurant in the Haitian business district in Irvington, New Jersey, on Saturday, while waiting to get her hair done nearby. "They didn't come illegally. Where are they going to go now?"
In cities with significant immigrant populations, many people willing to be interviewed and identified were not in danger of deportation themselves as part of the parole program, but shared the anguish of fellow residents who were, and spoke of a larger fear percolating through their communities.
In Irvington, New Jersey, a main street is lined with Haitian-run businesses. But some storefronts have shuttered as fear has spread, said Marie Jean-Francois, 45, one business owner there.
Jean-Francois, who owns a shop selling bedsheets, comforters and curtains, fears her business could be next. People have stopped going outside, she said, let alone shopping for supplies for homes they may not be able to stay in.
"Haitians do a lot of the hard jobs in America," she said. "Why can't we make a living here? Why do you have to push us away?"
She, too, has heard of people planning to leave for Canada -- Montreal has one of the largest Haitian communities outside of Haiti -- though Canadian border officials report that overall asylum applications so far this year are down significantly compared with the same point last year.
Mufalo Chitam, the executive director of the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition, said her group was counseling people against trying to cross the border to Canada.
Some immigrants who crossed there after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January were deported back to the United States or detained, she said. "Word has gone round," she said. "Attempting to cross over is even more risky."
And leaving is not always so simple. "People come here, they establish themselves here, maybe acquire some debt with a car or a home," said Douglas Rossman, a volunteer with AbueNica and Nicaragüenses en el Mundo, two groups that work with Nicaraguan refugees. "No one can just lock their home up and go to the airport. They have to make a plan."
Carl-Henry Joseph, a Haitian real estate agent in Indianapolis who works with many immigrants, said the broader political atmosphere was affecting people's abilities to buy homes, as banks consider whether certain work visas will be allowed to continue in the future.
"I have many transactions that are falling through," he said. "The banks are aware of what is happening and they don't want to approve the loans."
More than 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela had qualified for temporary status under the Biden-era program. Beneficiaries were able to fly directly to the United States and remain for two years if they had passed background checks and secured a U.S. sponsor.
It is unclear how many would be immediately vulnerable to deportation, because some have applied for more permanent status through other means.
The Trump administration has criticized the program as being poorly vetted, contributing to crime and creating competition for American jobs. "With this decision, DHS can once again start removing illegal aliens," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
Many of those affected have only recently come to the United States, enrolled their children in schools and started jobs, said Leonce Jean-Baptiste, the executive director of the Haitian Association of Indiana.
"All of a sudden the questions being put in front of them are, you could self deport, going back to Haiti, or you could stay in the U.S. and be captured by ICE," he said, adding that "the conditions in Haiti are the worst we've ever had."
"There are no good options," he said. "None whatsoever."
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