ENTERPRISE, Ala. — Moving from bustling Port-au-Prince, Haiti to a small Alabama city at the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains was difficult for Sarah Jacques.
But a year on, the 22-year-old has settled into the quiet environment. Jack gets a job at a manufacturing plant that makes car seats, finds a Creole church, and comes to appreciate its comfort and security. Depicting life in Albertville after political turmoil and violence tormented her homeland.
However, recently, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate have begun advertising. Misinformation about Haitian immigrants debunked In Springfield, Ohio, Jack said there is a new and unforeseen challenge: creating crime and “eating pets.”
“When we first came here, people waved and greeted us, but now it’s different,” Jacques said in Creole through an interpreter. “When people see you, they’re either very quiet or look at you like they’re afraid.”
As tensions rise, a bipartisan group of local religious leaders, law enforcement officials and residents from across Alabama sees the unrest in Springfield as a wake-up call. They are taking steps to help integrate Haitians into the state’s smaller cities where they live.
as political turmoil and violence Haiti’s growing numbers of immigrants are accepting the program Founded by President Joe Biden in 2023 The deal would allow the U.S. to admit up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela for two years, as well as give them work permits. The Biden administration recently announced that the program could allow an estimated 300,000 Haitians to remain in the United States. Until at least February 2026.
As of 2023, there were 2,370 people of Haitian descent in Alabama, according to census data. There are no official statistics showing that Alabama’s Haitian population has increased since the plan was implemented.
Albertville Mayor’s Assistant Robin Lathan said the immigration debate is nothing new for Albertville, which has had a growing immigrant population for 30 years. Lathan said the city doesn’t know how many Haitians have immigrated to the city in recent years, but “there seems to be an increase, especially in the last year.”
Representatives from the Albertville school system said 34% of the district’s 5,800 students were learning English as a second language last school year, compared to just 17% in 2017.
In August, weeks before Springfield made national headlines, a Facebook post of men getting off a bus to work at a chicken factory led some residents to believe the factory was illegally employing people living in the country. I guessed that it was.
A representative for the poultry plant said in an email to The Associated Press that all employees are legally allowed to work in the United States.
The uproar culminated in a public meeting, where some residents asked for clarification about a federal program that allows Haitians to legally work in Alabama, while others asked their landlords to He called for people’s “housing to be terminated” and suggested that immigrants “stink.” ” according to the audio recording.
For Unique Dunston, 27, a lifelong Albertville resident and community activist, those feelings were nostalgic.
“It seems like every time there’s a new influx of non-white people into Albertville, there’s a problem,” Dunston said.
Dunston runs a store that provides free supplies to the community. As tensions rose across the country, she placed multiple signs around town that read, “Welcome Neighbor, We’re Glad You’re Here” in English, Spanish and Creole.
Dunston said the signs are a way to “push back” on the notion that immigrants are not welcome.
When the Rev. John Pierre Charles first arrived in Albertville in 2006, he said his family was the only Haitian he knew in the area.
In 14 years of operation, his Creole congregation, Eglise Porte Etroit, has grown from just seven members in 2010 to about 300 members. He now has classrooms attached to the church building for English and driver education classes, as well as a podcast studio to serve the burgeoning community.
Still, Pierre Charles says the past few months have been the “worst time” for the Haitian community during his time in Albertville.
“I see people in Albertville who are really scared right now because they don’t know what’s going to happen,” Pierre Charles said. “Some of them are afraid that they might be sent back to Haiti. But some of them are scared because they don’t know how people will react to them.”
In the aftermath of the first public meeting in August, Pierre Charles sent a letter to city leadership asking for housing and food funding to help the growing community safely and economically and culturally adapt. He called for more resources.
“Being a bridge is what I’m trying to do,” Pierre-Charles said.
He’s not working alone.
In August, Jerilyn Hanson, 54, called for the first meeting to be held in Albertville, saying many residents had legitimate questions about how migration was impacting the city. I helped.
Hanson said she is currently adjusting her strategy to “focus on the human level.”
Mr. Hanson, an electrical contractor and Trump supporter, founded a nonprofit organization in September to work with Pierre Charles and other Haitian community leaders to meet growing demand for more stable They hope to provide housing and English classes.
“We can look at (Springfield) and be them in a year,” Hanson said, referring to the entrenched hostility in Ohio City. threats abound. “We can sit back and wait for things to unfold in front of us, or we can counteract them to some extent and allow everyone to be productive and talk to each other. can.”
Similar discussions have proliferated at public meetings across the state, even in areas where Haitians make up less than 0.5% of the population.
In Sylacauga, videos from numerous public meetings show residents questioning the impact of an alleged increase in Haitian immigration. There are only 60 Haitian immigrants in the town of about 12,000 southeast of Birmingham, officials said.
In Enterprise, not far from the Alabama-Florida border, Open Door Baptist Church opened in September for an event that promises answers about how the growing Haitian population is impacting the city. The parking lot was packed with cars.
After the event, Mathis Lower Creek Indian Tribal Chairman James Wright said he was sympathetic to the reasons why Haitians were being forced to leave their homes, but that the immigrants had no right to change Enterprise’s local “political culture” or “community values.” He said he was concerned that it might affect people’s views.
Other attendees echoed concerns and misinformation about Haitian immigrants being “lawless” and “dangerous.”
But others came to try to allay growing fears about immigrant communities.
Corporate Police Chief Michael Moore said he shared the department’s statistics showing that despite Haiti’s population growing, crime has not increased appreciably.
“I think there were quite a few people there who were more concerned about fear-mongering than they were about immigrants,” Moore told The Associated Press.
Moore said the department received reports of Haitian immigrants living in housing that violated city ordinances, but when the people in question were contacted, the problem was quickly resolved. Since then, his department has not heard any credible complaints about crimes caused by immigrants.
“I fully understand that some people may not like what I’m saying because it doesn’t align with their personal thought process,” Moore said. “But they are facts.”
