ENTERPRISE, Ala.-- The transition from the bustling Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to a small Alabama city on the southernmost tip of the Appalachian mountain range was challenging for Sarah Jacques.But, over the course of a year, the 22-year-old got used to the quiet and settled in.
Jacques got a job at a manufacturing plant that makes car seats, found a Creole-language church and came to appreciate the ease and security of life in Albertville after the political turmoil and violence that's plagued her home country.Recently, though, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate began promoting debunked misinformation about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, causing crime and “eating pets,” Jacques said there have been new, unforeseen challenges.“When I first got here, people would wave at us, say hello to us, but now it’s not the same,” Jacques said in Creole through a translator.“When people see you, they kind of look at you like they’re very quiet with you or afraid of you.”Amid this mounting tension, a bipartisan group of local religious leaders, law enforcement officials and residents across Alabama see the fallout in Springfield as a cautionary tale — and have been taking steps to help integrate the state's Haitian population in the small cities where they live.As political turmoil and violence intensify in Haiti, Haitian migrants have embraced a program established by President Joe Biden in 2023 that allows the U.S.
to accept up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela for two years and offers work authorization.The Biden administration recently announced the program could allow an estimated 300,000 Haitians to remain in the U.S.
at least through February 2026.In 2023, there were 2,370 people of Haitian ancestry in Alabama, according to census data.There is no official count of the increase in the Haitian population in Alabama since the program was implemented.The immigration debate is not new...