The wife of a Haitian pastor being held in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana says she fears he could be deported before a pending green card application is decided. "I felt that God put us together," Omara Nunez, a student, said of her husband, Pastor Molis Augustave, a York, Pennsylvania, pastor who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this month. "Every day I wonder what the future holds.
What if he is deported?" A spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Newsweek: "On September 4, ICE arrested Molis Augustave, an illegal alien from Haiti, as part of the 287g partnership with West Manchester Police Department, who encountered Augustave after conducting a vehicle stop in York, Pennsylvania. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal." Advocates say he was later transferred from Pennsylvania to Louisiana. DHS said Molis Augustave was encountered by U.S.
Border Patrol near San Ysidro, California, after entering the United States illegally in July 2016 and was later released, before an immigration judge issued a final order of removal in March 2018. According to the York Daily Record, Molis Augustave was pulled over by a West Manchester Township Police officer for a burned-out headlight and an expired vehicle registration before being transferred to ICE custody. The outlet reported that Augustave was working as a DoorDash delivery driver shortly before he was stopped by police.
Augustave is being held at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, according to the agency's detainee database. His detention sparked a rally and press conference in York on Tuesday attended by faith leaders, immigrant advocacy groups and residents, who called on federal authorities to release him from custody while U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services adjudicates his pending green card application.
Augustave previously held Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian program that allows nationals of certain countries to live and work in the United States temporarily. His supporters say he lost those protections after the Trump administration moved to terminate TPS for Haitians. He worked as an organizer with the immigrant advocacy group We Are CASA, the group said.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants. Doe, challenged the administration's decision to terminate TPS for Haitians and Syrians, with plaintiffs arguing that conditions in Haiti remained dangerous and that the government had not followed legal requirements for ending the program. In a 6-3 ruling, the court found that decisions by the Department of Homeland Security to terminate TPS designations generally are not subject to judicial review, allowing the administration to move forward with ending the protections.
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