Overview:
As Haitian TPS holders await a court decision on when protections will end, advocates, the emotional toll has reached a breaking point. During a recent community meeting, speakers described families paralyzed by uncertainty, children withdrawing from school and summer activities, parents losing jobs, and a growing mental health crisis.
BROOKLYN — “Should I keep paying my mortgage?”
“My lease, should I continue paying my rent?”
“What happens to my child going to school in September, if I go?”
For some, the uncertainty has become so overwhelming that mental health workers say they are hearing something even more alarming.
“I cannot tell you how many clients are flat out saying ‘oum pito tuye tèt mwen ke m tonunen en Ayiti,’” one advocate shared.
For Haitian community organizations around New York, questions like these are the norm as Haitian Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders try to prepare for a future neither they nor the service providers can predict.
The comments came during a virtual community meeting Thursday — on the eve of yet another TPS work permit deadline — organized by the Haitian American Alliance of New York where attorneys, educators, advocates and mental health professionals gathered to discuss the latest developments surrounding TPS. In addition to the legal and legislative proceedings, much of the conversation centered on what participants described as an escalating emotional crisis unfolding inside Haitian households.
“People are home, that are petrified,” said Yolette Williams, executive director of HAA-NY. “People are living with such high levels of anxiety.”
Across the community, many TPS holders have already stopped going to work or have lost their jobs as employers tell them not to return. Others are avoiding doctors, churches and even everyday activities as fear reshapes daily life.
The uncertainty has also transformed financial planning into crisis planning. Housing instability, food insecurity and mental health services are among the top concerns emerging as some try to prepare for the next phase of life as “illegal” immigrants after living and working in the country with a legal status for years, some of them decades.
Organizations said callers are asking whether they should transfer money to relatives, prepare powers of attorney, sell their homes or continue making mortgage and rent payments.
“We’re not telling people to self deport,” Elsie Saint Louis, executive director and CEO of Haitian Americans United for Progress (HAUP), said. “We are telling people to be prepared.”
That preparation includes identifying trusted relatives to care for children, safeguarding finances and organizing legal documents should families suddenly be separated.
Some educators are already seeing the effects.
One school leader recalled attendance dropping as immigrant parents became afraid to send children to school. Looking ahead to the start of the school year, the educator fears another wave of trauma.
“Listening to the potential outcome… I’m a bit nervous of potential chaos,” said Natacha Ulysse, president of the Society of Haitian Supervisors and Administrators (SHSA). “Not only anxiety, the trauma many of those kids are going to suffer.”
Already this summer, many children are withdrawing from normal routines, another advocate added. Because some parents fear they might be detained en route to summer programs, their U.S.-born children are not attending.
Despite curtailing their day-to-day activities, many families remain reluctant to prepare because they continue to hope and pray that TPS will be preserved.
“I don’t think people are realizing or understanding that TPS, as we know it, is over,” Saint-Louis said. “They just keep handing us a lollipop every other day.”
HAUP recently began offering wills and estate planning services pro bono for a limited number of people that could help TPS holders, she said after the meeting. However, most clients are requesting one-on-one immigration attorney guidance to help them stay in the U.S.
Meeting participants, about 20 in all, repeatedly returned to what they viewed as the most urgent need: life-saving emotional support for people who have expressed suicidal ideation.
“That is something I hear from my youth and something I hear from parents, especially fathers,” one advocate said, explaining that some in the latter group feel like they can’t let their family down.
“I’ve heard it myself,” said Williams, a licensed social worker who has been providing some support services.
“There’s a big burden in my heart for these kids, for these families, and for all of them.”
While attorneys updated participants on the legal timeline, community leaders concluded that legal guidance alone will not meet the moment. They also called for a coordinated response involving educators, mental health professionals, medical providers and community organizations to reach families who are increasingly retreating from public life.
“How do we support people even if they’re not coming out,” one advocate asked the group. “What’s the means of information-giving we’re going to use to make sure people are receiving the right care and the right support?”