Radical Hospitality: One Woman's Fight for Haitian Migrants

When buses of immigrants from Texas and Florida arrived in Chicago in the summer of 2022, the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti (a local organization led by members of the Haitian diaspora) stepped in to help. The group has supported nearly 350 Haitian families who fled gang violence in Haiti as they began rebuilding their lives in the United States. 

As ICE operations have increased across the country under the Trump administration, the organization has continued to help families navigate the complex immigration system, access resources, and stay safe. 

In this episode, we speak with the organization's executive director about the challenges of supporting Haitian migrants and what continues to drive their work. 

Produced by Obed Lamy obedlamy.com for Reparations Media NFP | In collaboration with the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti Haitian Congress.org

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

It's summer 2022 and downtown Chicago is buzzing with activity. People are moving all around and traffic is flowing above and on the streets. But that summer, there was something else happening in the city.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

The governor of Texas sending a message and a busload of migrants to Chicago. They arrived tonight and you need 15,000 migrants have arrived.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Many of these immigrants were people from Haiti. They were fleeing gang violence and political crisis in their home country, and they found themselves on the streets of Chicago, some with just a plastic bag of clothes and no place to go. Inside Chicago's Haitian community, the news spread fast.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

When I started to learn what was going on, my head was spinning all the time. You know, the people need housing. We have to have food. We have to help them be safe.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

This is Aline. She's a Haitian American who serves as the program director for the Haitian Congress to fortify Haiti. Back then, she knew her community would have to step in.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

It was like nine families, then ten families, then twenty families, then eighty families. What are we gonna do? And at one point it just became overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I'm Obed Lamy. In this episode of Change Agents, we learn about the work Aline has been doing, helping Haitian immigrants in the Chicago area as they navigate the US immigration system. Aline is not a social worker, and she is not an immigration expert, and her organization had very little to work with. So during the 2022 immigration crisis, she started building partnerships with local organizations and she even lobbied the city of Chicago. And these efforts have paid off because over the past three years, she's been able to provide assistance to some 350 Haitian families. Since then, these families have been working, paying taxes, raising their children, and contributing to American society. For Alin, this work has become her calling. And this is a calling she never thought she would take on, especially after retiring from over 40 years in Corporate America, working in customer service at ATT and United Airlines.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I was looking for an opportunity to help those who would come here and didn't find their way first because of language barrier, not knowing where to go. That always stayed with me because that's what I experienced.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

The experience she's talking about here comes from when she first arrived in America, and that was over 50 years ago. She did not speak much English, she had to navigate a new school system, and all the while she was battling with the harsh Chicago winters. But her passion for helping people really began during her childhood in Haiti as she was watching her mother's generosity on display every day.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

The kitchen was separate from the house, and she was making coffee, and people around the neighborhoods would come and sit around the fire that's making the coffee because people are pretty cold, and everyone got a cup of coffee, and if she had bread, everybody got bread. It meant for me to always be the person that welcomes folks in my house, to welcome someone that needs me to help, to lend a hand. You couldn't grow up in my family and not learn how to give.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Today, Aline brings that same spirit of service to her work at the Haitian Congress to fortify Haiti. It's an organization that's been around since 2005, giving Haitians in the US a way to be involved, both with their homeland and here in the diaspora. The US immigration system has changed a lot since President Trump returned to power. And these changes have created many challenges for Haitian immigrants. Alin feels the weight of it all.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

I feel terrible. I mean, am I angry? Am I upset? Yeah. Because what I notice with our community, with the folks who've been helping, they are hardworking people. That's all they want to do is work and have their family stable. Um, it it bothers me. It just makes you have sleepless nights to think that, you know, any minute, you know, they can be picked up.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

I stopped by Alin's office on the north side of Chicago last fall. The office is just one bright room packed with desks and cubicles. You could see a Haitian flag in some colorful Haitian paintings all around the womb. There were two staffers busy flipping to piles of documents and making phone calls. And some of those phone calls, as I could hear, were to tell clients that they finally had an immigration appointment. There were only two people who came in person that day for help. And here's what Alin had told me in our earlier conversation.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Some of them are so scared that they have to be on the phone with the organization to do their application.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Aline said no Haitians have been detained, but programs that once provided them protection from deportation have ended. She also told me about cases of Haitian immigrants who've lost their jobs because they no longer have work authorization and they have fallen behind on rent. And there is another crisis on the way. The Trump administration plans to end Temporary Protected Studies or TPS for Haitians in February 2026. This program has allowed roughly half a million Haitians to live and work legally in the US since 2010. Now, across the United States, Haitian immigrants are desperately searching for options. And here in Chicago, once again, the Haitian Congress is having a hard time to keep up with demand. The organization has just five staff members working part-time three days a week. Two of them are caseworkers focusing mainly on immigration applications, but neither is the lawyer.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

In a sense that we have funding to have everybody that needs to consult with an immigration lawyer that we could help them with the funding. That's my number one wish. We don't have that. Sometimes you don't know which door to knock on to get that. Because foundations tend to give to organizations that's been doing that type of work for years and years and have a good track record. We have a good track record, but we've been at this in 2021.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Since they do not have lawyers on staff, the Haitian Congress partners with the Resurrection Project. It's a local organization that runs a free immigration legal clinic. When Haitian immigrants come to the Haitian Congress to apply for asylum, they are sent to the resurrection project where attorneys or representatives who have accreditation from the Justice Department go over their cases. If the immigrant meets the criteria for asylum, the resurrection project works with them to file the application. Throughout the entire process, the Haitian Congress provides Haitian creole interpreters, which is very important because many of these immigrants do not speak English. Now, submitting an asylum application does not solve everything. But it does provide some safety from deportation, at least on paper, and a way to get a work permit while the case is pending. And that is a good relief for many Haitian immigrants and for Alina as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

They recently applied for their employment authorization document, and with that, employers will take that and say you can come back to work or you can work. I mean, I feel happy when that happens. And they're happy too that hey, now I can work.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Even with the small victories here and there, Alina admits it's very hard for her to stay hopeful right now for Haitian immigrants in the US. But still, she has not lost faith in Haiti.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

I don't have any hope that they will do anything different than what's happening here. And that's discouraging. I wish and I hope and I pray that something is done so that the calamity that's happening in Haiti can stop.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Thank you for joining Change Agents, the podcast series looking at grassroots actions and solutions through stories told from the inside out. ChangeAgence is produced by Reparations Media. The music is composed by Sarah Abdullah. Funding support is provided by the Chicago Community Foundation, the Chicago Community Trust, the Field Foundation, the Wayfarer Foundation, and the Lumpkin Family Foundation. Subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever you find podcasts. And follow ChangeAgents on Facebook, Instagram, and our website, ChangeAgentsThepodcast.com.