'The streets are empty': TPS loss casts a hush over Miami's Little Haiti
MIAMI — Jean-Marie Denis lifted the metal grate at Libreri Mapou, his Creole- and French-language bookshop in the heart of Little Haiti. The store sits beside the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, a turreted wooden building painted like a Haitian gingerbread house, not far from a Haitian church, the restaurant Piman Bouk, and an elementary school named for Toussaint Louverture.
Little Haiti has been a refuge since the 1970s for Haitians fleeing dictatorship and political violence. It remained the historic heart of America's largest Haitian diaspora through the 2010 earthquake, the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and the government's collapse into gang warfare. But a new quiet has descended since the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians on Aug. 5.
"They just don't want to expose themselves," said Denis, widely known by the name of his store, Jan Mapou. "They don't go out."
Florida is home to nearly half of the 330,000 Haitian TPS recipients in the United States, and many of them live in South Florida. Community advocates say the change has disrupted life at every level: people can no longer work legally, businesses are losing customers and staff, and some families have delayed medical care or kept children home from school. Miami-Dade County's school year began Aug. 13.
"Our businesses are empty. Churches are empty. The streets are empty. People have completely gone underground," said Santra Denis, a member of the Haitian American Professionals Coalition. "It's quite devastating."
The Department of Homeland Security declined to say whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would target Haitians who lost TPS. It said those who leave voluntarily can receive $2,600 and a paid flight home, and described the program as "a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent." The State Department has continued to advise Americans not to travel to Haiti, warning of crime, terrorism, kidnapping and unrest.
In South Florida, many now face what they describe as impossible choices. Haiti remains dangerous and unstable. Finding refuge in Canada, Chile or Brazil is difficult. Staying means risking arrest, deportation and separation from American-born children.
"It is one of the most difficult moments in our history," said the Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary, who has led Little Haiti's Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church for 25 years. "I have never witnessed such a negative impact of immigration policy on the Haitian community."
Just before noon, chef Wilkinson "Ken" Sejour was hauling supplies into one of his Chef Creole restaurants in the Miami heat. A sign displayed his catchphrase: "This Haitian can cook!" Sejour, the son of Haitian parents born in the Bahamas, has lived in Miami since 1974. He said he lost 14 employees after TPS ended and has scrambled to keep all seven restaurants running. His Haitian customers who lost status, he said, have little money to eat out and do not want to risk being seen in public. Sejour said he voted for Trump, a decision he now regrets.
"I'm not saying to break the law. But at least say ... let's take our time and really figure out a pathway. They've been rooted here. They've been here for a while. It's not fair just to uproot them overnight," he said.
The loss of Haitian workers is rippling across South Florida industries. In the greater Miami area, an estimated 52,000 Haitian TPS holders were working as agricultural hands, cooks, nursing assistants, landscapers, housekeepers and security guards, according to Phillip Connor, a research fellow at Princeton University's Center for Migration and Development, drawing on analysis by FWD.us, the Haitian Bridge Alliance and the UndocuBlack Network.
The Service Employees International Union said about 60 airport workers lost jobs at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where they had worked as cabin cleaners, baggage handlers, wheelchair escorts and security officers. Denise Bellville, executive director of the Home Care Association of Florida, said two home-care agencies closed after losing 85 of 86 workers. Jewish Community Services of South Florida said it lost 18 Haitian employees, including some who had built close ties to aging Holocaust survivors.
Farah Larrieux, 47, who has been in the United States under TPS since 2010, said she has had to drop clients from her communications business and lost a part-time hospitality job. She has applied for asylum, although that does not stop deportation. She also helped launch a national network of Haitian TPS recipients to push for extended protections. "We feel like we're living in a nightmare," she said. "Because you're asking yourself, is this really the United States?"
Harlaine Dominique, 38, of Coral Springs, was starting a travel-nurse job in Massachusetts when TPS ended. Unable to work legally, she flew home to South Florida the same day. Dominique came from Haiti as a child and worked on the front lines of health care during the pandemic. She has considered moving to Australia, Canada, New Zealand or France, but a custody battle has complicated her plans and her son does not have a passport. "If I was to be picked up by ICE today, I would be separated from my son. I would be forced to leave without him," she said.
Natacha, a 44-year-old North Miami mother who asked that her last name be withheld for fear of being targeted by ICE, lives with five children, including a U.S. citizen with Down syndrome. She has rarely left home and was afraid to take one child to a doctor for an ear condition. On the first day of school, her husband told her to keep the kids home. "Let's wait a little bit, because it may be a trap," he said.
Advocates say they have not seen the kind of large, visible sweeps that many fear, but former TPS holders are being detained in smaller ways, such as traffic stops. Thamara Labrousse, who leads the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center, said one man was stopped for a broken taillight while going out for pizza and was detained. Some Florida TPS holders have received notices to appear in immigration court, which advocates say often leads to deportation orders. In July, the Miami Herald reported that U.S. officials warned the Haitian government to expect at least two weekly flights carrying around 200 people after TPS protections ended; those flights have been landing in Cap-Haïtien. The FAA halted flights to Port-au-Prince's airport in November 2024 after three U.S. commercial jetliners were struck by gunfire.
Some families are preparing for the worst. Advocates and service nonprofits say parents are seeking passports for U.S.-born children, naming trusted relatives as co-signers on bank accounts, and setting up powers of attorney in case they are deported. Others have been slower to make such decisions. The mental toll is also visible, Labrousse said: children are traumatized by their parents' fear, and women have become more reluctant to report domestic violence.
"I've never seen such a high level of trauma and depression," said Miami-Dade Commissioner Marleine Bastien, who has called on Congress to extend TPS for Haitian nationals. "And Haitian people are a people of unbreakable faith. And to hear parents asking me, 'Commissioner, what have we done? Has God abandoned us?' So these are the questions I'm being asked."
On a humid morning, about a dozen people walked into Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church for Mass, taking Communion and singing hymns in French. The parish has seen a drop-off in worshippers and adult-education students, Father Jean-Mary said. He called deporting people to Haiti during the current crisis "unjust and immoral."
"Do not let this situation steal your hope, your joy, your peace, and your dignity. You are the children of God, and the victory is on the side of the people of God," he said.
Jean-Mary is less certain what the crisis will mean for Little Haiti, which has already seen its Haitian-born population decline amid gentrification, redevelopment and rising rents. Many parishioners now live in North Miami or farther out. Comedian Chris Renois, whose parents first lived in Little Haiti and who acted in the 2024 film "Mountains," about the neighborhood's transformation, said he wonders whether the TPS loss will further hollow out its cultural life. But he said the community remains close-knit.
"As dire as the situation looks now, my mom always reminds me that it's really just a storm, and that the Haitian people will make it through," Renois said. "And I believe Little Haiti will survive what's going on now."