Sarah Jacques struggled to adjust to a small Alabama city in the southernmost Haitian Appalachian mountain range from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The 22-year-old adjusted to the quiet after a year. Jacques worked at a car seat manufacturing company, founded a Creole-language church, and liked Albertville’s safety after her country’s political unrest.
Jacques said additional hurdles have arisen after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate made false claims about Haitian immigration in Springfield, Ohio, creating crime and “eating pets.”
“People would wave at us, say hello, when I first arrived, but now it’s not the same,” Jacques said in Creole via a translator. “People see you and seem either quiet or scared.” In this hostile context, nonpartisan Alabama religious leaders, law enforcement, and citizens took Springfield’s outcomes as a warning. Little US towns are welcoming Haitians.
Haitian migrants supported President Joe Biden’s 2023 proposal to admit 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans every month for two years and allow work. The Biden administration may let 300,000 Haitians stay until February 2026.
In 2023, Alabama had 2,370 Haitians. As of now, there are unknown numbers in Alabama.
The immigration debate is ancient, says Albertville mayor’s executive assistant Robin Lathan. Immigration has increased for over 30 years. The city doesn’t track Haitian migration, but Lathan said, “it seems there has been an increase over the last year, in particular.”
Last year, 34% of Albertville’s 5,800 students learned English as a second language, up from 17% in 2017. An August Facebook post of people getting off a bus to work at a poultry company aroused fears that it was hiring illegal immigrants, weeks before Springfield made national headlines.
The chicken producer told The Associated Press that all its workers may lawfully work in the U.S. At a public meeting, some neighbors asked about the federal program that allows Haitians to work in Alabama legally, while others called for landlords to “cut off the housing” and said the migrants have a “smell to them,” according to audio recordings.
These remarks touched Albertville community organizer Unique Dunson, 27. “Every time Albertville gets a new influx of non-white people, there seems to be a problem,” Dunson said.
The Dunson community store distributes gifts. With national tensions rising, she put English, Spanish, and Creole “welcome neighbour glad you came” billboards throughout town.
Dunston said the billboards “push back” against migrant hate. John Pierre-Charles said he knew Albertville Haitians only from relatives. Within 14 years, his Creole-language church Eglise Porte Etroite went from seven members in 2010 to 300. He’s adding English, drivers’, and podcast studios to the church for growth.
Pierre-Charles deems the past few months “the worst period” for Albertville’s Haitians.
“I can see some people in Albertville who are scared right now because they don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Pierre-Charles. Some fear Haitian deportation. People fear not knowing others’ emotions.
After the August public meetings, Pierre-Charles wrote to city officials requesting more housing and food to help his growing community adapt economically and culturally.
“That’s what I’m trying to do, to be a bridge,” Pierre-Charles said. He cooperated. Gerilynn Hanson, 54, hosted the first session to answer Albertville residents’ valid migration questions in August. Hanson is going to “focus on the human level.”
In September, Hanson, an electrical contractor and Trump supporter, created a foundation with Pierre-Charles and other Haitian community leaders to address the demand for permanent housing and English language instruction.
“We can look at (Springfield) and become them in a year,” Hanson said of the city’s hate and threats. “We can watch without acting. We could make everyone productive and talkative.”
Even places with less than 0.5% Haitian population have state event issues.
Sylacauga residents question Haitian immigrants in public forum footage. Only 60 Haitian migrants dwell in the 12,000-person town southeast of Birmingham, officials say.
Open Door Baptist Church in Enterprise, Alabama, discussed Enterprise’s growing Haitian community in September. Many cars are parked there. After the accident, Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe chairman James Wright sympathized with the Haitians departing but worried migrants would affect Enterprise’s “political culture” and “community values.”
Other guests called Haitian immigration “lawless” and “dangerous.” To calm migratory anxieties, some arrived. Chief Michael Moore says Haitians haven’t increased enterprise crime.
“I think there were quite a few people there that were more concerned about fearmongering than the migrants,” Moore told AP.
Moore said his department encountered Haitian migrants in unlawful dwellings but rectified the issue by engaging them. Since then, his department hasn’t received reliable migrant crime complaints.
Moore said, “I completely understand that some people don’t like what I say because it doesn’t fit their own personal thought process.” “But those are facts.”
SOURCE: AP
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