A pastor is facing imminent deportation to Haiti after immigration officials denied his application for lawful permanent residence, advocates said. Pastor Molis Augustave, who was arrested during a vehicle stop in Pennsylvania earlier this month, remains separated from his wife Omara Nunez and their two young children as he awaits deportation, which supporters fear could occur as soon as this week. "I am still in immigration detention," Augustave said in a statement released Monday by We Are CASA, a national immigrant advocacy group.
"I want to go home to my wife and children in Pennsylvania." Augustave, 33, had been scheduled for a deportation flight to Haiti on September 17, but was pulled off the plane at the last minute, he said. Augustave, who previously held Temporary Protected Status before the Trump administration ended the program for roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals in late July, had been a pillar of his community prior to his detention, advocates said. "He has built his life around service to others," AFU's statement said.
"What benefit is it to the United States to deny this man his place among us, to tear him from the family and community who depend on him?" While in detention, Augustave says he has "been pastoring inside these walls. There are more than 100 people where I am being held. I have met men who are scared, men who cry, and men who have no idea what is going to happen to them.
One man told me he wanted to die." Augustave's deportation had been scuttled following an emotional campaign led by his wife, advocates said. "People power stopped Molis' deportation," We Are CASA's chief of services and legal advocacy Ama Frimpong said in a statement. "Then, in an act of retaliation and in an effort to move forward their mass deportation agenda, the Department of Homeland Security has just deprived Molis of a fair process that would keep him with his family." Frimpong alleges United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has become a "force multiplier" for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials by denying Augustave's application prematurely.
"We must hold USCIS accountable to its duties," Frimpong said. "We demand that USCIS reconsider and reverse this unjust decision." A motion to reopen Molis' removal proceedings remains pending before federal immigration officials, including a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, but Molis could be deported as soon as Thursday, We Are CASA spokeswoman Jossie Flor Sapunar told Newsweek.
Sapunar said immigration officials diligently worked to "fast-track" Augustave's deportation while detaining him in Louisiana, more than 1,000 miles away from his young family. "What's the basis for the denial?" Sapunar asked. In a statement Tuesday, DHS officials said ICE agents arrested Augustave, an "illegal alien from Haiti," as part of a partnership with the West Manchester Police Department during a vehicle stop on September 4 in York, Pennsylvania.
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