With Haitians seeking temporary protected status and other assistance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency is cautioning applicants about scams committed by immigration counselors.
“This type of situation unfortunately makes people vulnerable to scam artists who take advantage of it,” spokeswoman Kate Tichacek said.
The roots of Spring Valley’s Haitian population – probably the largest Haitian community of any suburb – are explored in an article today by Journal News reporter Khurram Saeed.
Community groups like the Haitian American Cultural and Social Organization are mobilizing to help people in Spring Valley, the surrounding area of Rockland County, N.Y., and back in Haiti. For a story in tomorrow’s paper, I spoke to the executive director, Rose Leandre, who is hoping to line up pro bono legal help for Haitians applying for TPS. Normally the organization has just one staff member dealing with immigration matters.
Tomorrow, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is coming to Rockland to meet with HACSO and other community groups in a TPS briefing like one held in Manhattan last week. The conference will be at Congressman Eliot Engel’s office in West Nyack.
Meanwhile Leandre had finally received word from her mother, an American citizen who had gone home to Leogane for a visit the day before the Jan. 12 earthquake. The 62-year-old Marie Gabriel had just made her way to the doorway of her home with her cane when the earthquake happened, Leandre said. Leandre’s uncle, who had come to drop something off, was able to pull her to safety before the home collapsed.
“I’m blessed,” Leandre said. “Now it’s time to give back.”
Spring Valley in Rockland County has the tri-state area’s highest concentration of people with Haitian ancestry, at 23 percent. It’s also home to the nation’s first Haitian-American mayor. The New York Times has a detailed map, linked here, of the Haitian diaspora in the area. Here are some statistics gathered by my colleague Tim Henderson about the NY suburbs.
In 2000, there were 5,300 people of Haitian ancestry in Spring Valley, the third largest Haitian population in the area behind New York City, home to 119,000 Haitians, and Irvington, N.J., with 5,800.
Among counties across the nation, Rockland has the nation’s fourth-largest Haitian concentration at 3.5 percent, or 12,000 people as of 2008, behind three South Florida counties.
Other suburban communities with significant Haitian populations in 2000:
Hillcrest (Rockland): 20% or 1,400 people
Nyack (Rockland): 8% or 600 people
South Nyack (Rockland): 8% or 300 people
Pomona (Rockland): 5% or 200 people
Fairview (Westchester): 5% or 110 people
Nanuet (Rockland): 3% or 630 people
West Haverstraw (Rockland): 3% or 380 people
Monsey (Rockland): 3% or 320 people
Mount Ivy (Rockland): 3% or 200 people
New Rochelle (Westchester): 1% or 930 people
Mount Vernon (Westchester): 1% or 825 people
Yonkers (Westchester): less than 1% or 890 people
Top photo: The 17th annual Haitian Day Parade of Unity in Spring Valley May 20, 2007. Angela Gaul/The Journal News. Bottom photo: Volunteers from the Bay Bourad Foundation collect money, food, water and clothing donations Jan 16, 2010 in Spring Valley. Matthew Brown/The Journal News.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has opened the process for Haitians to apply for temporary protected status. The rules were published today in the Federal Register. Here is a Q&A explaining the program.
The measure does not provide a pathway to citizenship, White Plains attorney Susan Henner said, but potentially it can provide a time period to begin a green card application through an employer. With TPS, unauthorized immigrants have an 18-month protection from deportation and permission to work in the United States. Applicants must prove that they were in the United States by Jan. 12 of this year.
Haiti joins El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia, and Sudan as countries designated for TPS.
Update:
Sarah Maldonado, an attorney in Scarsdale, sent us information after participating in a teleconference led by the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Alejandro Mayorkas. He said the agency is increasing staff to prioritize Haitian immigration cases and handle an expected 100,000-200,000 TPS applications.
Maldonado writes:
“Only Haitians who can show that they have continuously resided in the United States since January 12, 2010, and who remain in continual physical presence in the United States starting January 21, 2010 will be eligible to apply. The TPS registration period starts January 21, 2010, and ends within 180 days.
Haitian immigrants will be able to apply for temporary protected status once a notice is published in the Federal Register, likely this week, attorney Greg Siskind explains on his blog. He posted an FAQ about the provision here. In New York, USCIS is holding a community briefing on TPS tomorrow at 26 Federal Plaza.
In other news, a contingent of 50 volunteers from Rockland County — mostly Haitian-American medical and emergency personnel — are trying to find transportation to assist in the relief effort. Today, members of the Orthodox Jewish community in Rockland met with Haitian-Americans to talk about ways to help. And Haitians in the area continue to share stories of heartbreak over the earthquake’s impact.
By the way, AP has an interactive graphic about Haiti and its history, here.
Following the news of a Mamaroneck “pastor” pleading guilty to a visa scam comes more targets named by state AG Andrew Cuomo. The NYT has this story on Edward Juarez, a radio and newspaper commentator being sued by Cuomo amid the ongoing investigation on immigration services. The lawsuit targets Juarez’s organizations, the International Immigrants Foundation and the International Professional Association, saying they botched cases and hired people who falsely claimed to be lawyers.
Newsday reports that the attorney general’s office has been flooded with calls about the foundation.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Haitians will be eligible for temporary protected status, protecting them from deportation and allowing them to work in the United States.
This is a disaster of historic proportions and this designation will allow eligible Haitian nationals in the United States to continue living and working in our country for the next 18 months.
The announcement came with a warning to disaster victims in Haiti who find it “tempting” to flee to the United States.
It is important to note that TPS will apply only to those individuals who were in the United States as of January 12, 2010. Those who attempt to travel to the United States after January 12, 2010 will not be eligible for TPS and will be repatriated.
Why does Haiti suffer these calamities? Because of its pact with the devil when it sought freedom from France, according to Pat Robertson.
Haitians in the United States are outraged at this and also at comments by Rush Limbaugh, which Long Island Wins reports on here. I skipped those. I’m sick enough already.
For a response from Paris, and some actual history, see the Christian Science Monitor story “French view theory with disbelief.”
This is how one Haitian immigrant described the sense of devastation yesterday. “Haiti is always fighting with life. Cyclone. Earthquake. Presidents.”
I spoke with Nice Pierre along with her husband, Rigaud Pierre, pastor of the French Speaking Baptist Church in New Rochelle (above). Like others, they were going through an agonizing wait for information about loved ones in Haiti.
Deportations to Haiti are suspended for an unspecified time, officials announced today, as advocates renewed calls to make Haitians eligible for a special humanitarian measure that would protect them for a certain length of time. Temporary protected status allows people from designated countries to live and work in the United States under a formal protection from deportation.
One call came from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which said it had joined the Refugees Council US and 25 other refugee agencies in sending a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Gideon Aronoff, President and CEO of HIAS, said in a statement:
Many of the Haitians in the U.S. are unable to return to their homeland because of the infrastructure chaos there, yet by staying here they are able to provide important economic and social support for their family members in Haiti. Any issuance of a TPS should be accompanied by a stay of the current DHS interdiction and return policy of Haitians fleeing by sea to the United States.
From Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum:
In truth, the earthquake is only the latest natural disaster to strike; the country has suffered a number of hurricanes and floods in recent years. If there were doubts about whether Haitians merited TPS after those disasters, there is absolutely no doubt now.
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