Note: Cardinal News has changed the names of some of the sources in this story to protect their identities.
Josue sat at a round folding table in a community room inside College Park Baptist Church in Danville on a sunny Monday in mid-July, about a week after he lost his job.
His sudden unemployment affected not only Josue’s life, but the lives of his family members back in Haiti.
“My mom and dad helped me travel so I can help them have a better life,” Josue said. “Now things are difficult for them because I can’t work.”
Josue came to Virginia in 2024, leaving the political instability and gang violence of his home country. He’d received humanitarian parole status from the U.S. government — which included employment authorization — and a cousin sent word that there was good work in Danville.
For about eight months, he sent home money that he earned working at the Tyson Foods manufacturing plant in Danville.
He is one of 11 children, and with his mother partially paralyzed from a fall years ago, the money that Josue sent home was crucial for his family, he said.
“I need to work more to pay our bills,” he said. “I feel bad because I can’t help her.”
In mid-July, Josue was told that he would no longer be working at Tyson. His humanitarian parole status had been terminated by the federal government, and his accompanying employment authorization document would no longer be valid.
Danville is home to a small cluster of about 17 Haitian immigrants, and several are in a similar situation after President Donald Trump’s administration canceled a host of immigration status programs this summer.
“Right now, we don’t know what to do,” Josue said. “I know my job was cut because of the government. My experience there was good, and I need a job.”
Josue explained this in Spanish to Clara, who was born in Honduras and has lived in the United States for 25 years. His native language is Haitian Creole, and he learned Spanish in Chile after he fled Haiti, driven out by gang violence and political instability.
His Spanish is not fluent, but it’s passable, said Clara, who translated his words into English.
Three other Haitian men at the table spoke only Haitian Creole.
To communicate with them, Clara had to translate an English question into Spanish for Josue, who then translated it into Haitian Creole.
The others, Robenson, Kervens and Dieuful, responded in Haitian Creole, which Josue translated back into Spanish for Clara, who then translated it into English.
Inevitably, things were lost in communication, even with the help of Google Translate.
But the sense of confusion and fear, mingled with a hope that something will allow them to stay in the United States, still translates.
Federal changes terminate status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants
Amaryllis Law in Salem has seen a lot of new faces recently, as protected status cancellations roll out and immigrants look for legal solutions, said attorney Mary Sirmans. The firm specializes in immigration and adoption law.
About 500,000 people were granted humanitarian parole under the CHNV program, the official parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
Josue had protected status under this program, which was established in 2023 by the Biden administration.
It granted certain nationals from these four countries the ability to enter the U.S., and then work and stay in the country for up to two years. Josue was expecting to be able to stay in the U.S. until at least 2026.
Another 1.1 million people live in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, an immigration status available to nationals of certain countries facing unsafe political or humanitarian conditions. It allows those nationals the ability to work in the U.S. and grants them protection from deportation.
About 260,000 of those people are from Haiti. In Virginia, more than 28,000 people have TPS protection.
In June, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that the Trump administration would revoke TPS for Haiti, a designation that the Caribbean country has held since a devastating earthquake in 2010.
Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Venezuela are also losing their TPS designations this year.
Immigration status is unique person to person, and each client is in different circumstances, Sirmans said.
One stark difference is timeline. CHNV parole cancellation was effective immediately, while folks with TPS protection had a little more time.
The Department of Homeland Security began sending termination notices to paroled individuals in June, explaining that it was no longer legal for them to work or live in the country. Their employment authorization documents were no longer valid, and they had to leave the U.S. immediately if they had not obtained lawful status to stay.
TPS ends a bit later. For Haitians, TPS protection ends Sept. 2.
That is why Josue, who had CHNV parole protection, is no longer employed at Tyson, but Robenson’s wife, Mirlande, who has TPS, was still working there when he was let go in July.
Since then, however, she has also been notified that she can no longer work at Tyson, with the September deadline approaching.
This is stressful, Mirlande said, because she needs long-term employment to send money to her family in Haiti and to support her family of three in the U.S.
Until recently, she and Robenson lived with their year-old daughter and some of the other Haitian immigrants in a house in Danville.
Robenson and Josue left the state in mid-August to search for work elsewhere, and Mirlande stayed behind with the baby.
“My family [in Haiti] is not living well because of insecurity,” she said. “This is the reason why we had to move, so that we can bring our help to them. Our family has a lot of hope in us.”
Next week, her employment authorization and legally protected status will end.
“For those without legal status in the U.S., they will return to an undocumented status and potentially be subject to removal proceedings,” according to the National Immigration Forum.
Temporary Protected Status is essentially exactly what it sounds like, said Sirmans.
“When a country is in turmoil, say a natural disaster or civil war has sent the country into upheaval, the president and his administration can determine that this country should be given temporary protected status,” she said. “That status is good for 18 months and then it has to be redesignated.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced in June that in Haiti, “country conditions have improved to the point where Haitians can return home in safety,” according to a release.
“This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,” said a DHS spokesperson in the release. “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.”
If they did not have a previous legal status, Haitians with TPS have until the September deadline to self-deport, or voluntarily return to Haiti.
“It’s not safe to go back,” Josue said, through Clara. “We came to the U.S. for more opportunities and a better life. We want to stay.”
Each of the immigrants left Haiti to escape dangerous conditions, though some of their family members weren’t as fortunate.
Robenson described rampant gang violence in Haiti, which has put his family in danger. It’s hard for him to talk about.
“It’s a long story, but my mother was killed with my sister, who was just 2 months old,” he said. “The person who killed my mother is still causing problems for the family. … Some of my family members in Haiti are not living in a real home because of this.”
Robenson traveled through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico before coming to the U.S. in 2023.
Mirlande also lost a sister to violence in Haiti, something that she said she doesn’t like to talk about. “That is my saddest story,” she said.
The couple recently completed a lengthy process to get a birth certificate for their daughter, who turned a year old in August. Her first birthday came about two years after Robenson left Haiti.
Kervens said he left Haiti after his home was set on fire. Arson is a recurring danger in Haiti, typically in connection with gang violence and civil unrest.
On top of the effects on individuals and their families, Sirmans said these status cancellations will affect the country as a whole.
“We’re going to have hundreds of thousands of people here without status, which is really going to impact the economy, because you’ll have all these people who can no longer work validly,” she said.
“TPS holders from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti contribute a combined $4.5 billion in pre-tax wages or salary income annually, as of April 2017,” according to the National Immigration Forum. “The total Social Security and Medicare contributions of those individuals is estimated at more than $6.9 billion over a 10-year span.”
The National Immigration Forum is a nonprofit organization established in 1982 to advance federal immigration policy solutions through bipartisan efforts.
The forum estimates that about 130,000 TPS holders work as essential critical infrastructure workers. More than 94% of individuals with this status are in the labor force.
“I think these cancellations also send a message to other countries that we don’t really care about your people anymore,” Sirmans said. “Even though they’ve been here for years and have been contributing to this country, to our economy, paying into Social Security.”
Immigrants search for other options
In the wake of these status cancellations, some federal district courts have attempted to offer relief to immigrants. This tactic has since been prohibited.
In April, a federal district court in Massachusetts temporarily blocked the termination of CHNV parole. About a month later, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order that lifted that injunction.
“The Supreme Court basically held that district courts can no longer do nationwide injunctions, which is really going to impact immigration,” Sirmans said. “An executive order could come out, and we can’t stop it nationwide. We’ll have to work with individual plaintiffs coming and bringing their own individual lawsuits.”
There’s nothing employers can do either, said Sirmans, because they have to adhere to federal law.
Tyson Foods public relations did not respond to questions for this story.
Still, immigrants facing status cancellation may have more options than they realize, said Sirmans.
Folks with TPS protection may have been in the country for years — TPS Haiti was first granted 15 years ago. This means there could be other avenues for immigration status, Sirmans said.
“For example, are they now married to someone who is a permanent resident or U.S. citizen?” she said. “Did they enter lawfully and now maybe have a kid who is 21 and could petition for them? Do they qualify for asylum? … These are options that immigration attorneys could vet them for to see if they have another way to stay in the United States.”
Sirmans recommends contacting an immigration attorney to find out what options exist. The road to another type of immigration status looks different for every person, usually depending on how they entered the U.S., she said.
“If a person came in lawfully, their process, no matter what it is, is going to be easier than a person who came in unlawfully, whether they were detained or not,” Sirmans said. “And when I say ‘easy,’ no immigration process is easy. We’re going to be seeing exorbitant filing fees and very long wait times in most cases.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill that was signed into law in early July imposes mandatory fees on certain immigration benefit requests, like asylum and TPS.
These costs, as well as the cost for an attorney, can be prohibitive, Sirmans said. Nonprofits like Immigrant Connection Blue Ridge, which is based in Roanoke but serves the surrounding region, can be helpful in providing legal services at a lower cost.
Stories like these are not uncommon for Haitian immigrants. The best thing that individuals can do to help is donate to nonprofits that assist immigrants, Sirmans said.
Some members of Danville’s Haitian community are working with attorneys to pursue alternate avenues to stay in the U.S. but have not yet received permission to do so.
Robenson said he worked with a lawyer to apply for a renewed employment authorization at the end of July. He got word earlier this month that it had been denied. His application for asylum is being processed, but there’s no guarantee that it will be accepted.
“All of our dreams and desires” are to stay in the U.S. lawfully, Mirlande said.
