ICE deports Haitian pastor previously spared removal
First entered the US illegally in 2016, ordered to leave in 2018
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have deported Haitian Pastor Molis Augustave to Haiti after officials previously spared him from removal by taking him off a flight at the last minute.
The immigrant rights group We Are CASA announced Thursday that Augustave had been sent back after weeks of dispute over his status, FOX43 reported.
The group said 19 days had passed between his arrest and his deportation.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected his application for permanent residency, known as a green card, last week. Advocates said the agency gave no explanation, and his legal team is still pursuing an appeal.
Officials had pulled Augustave off the earlier flight so his green card request could be considered, after a national campaign by elected officials, clergy and community groups. He had been one of 90 Haitians booked on that flight.
Ama Frimpong, who leads legal advocacy and services at We Are CASA, said at the time that Augustave told his wife he was frightened as he was being put on the plane. The delay allowed his lawyers to ask the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen his case and urgently halt his removal, she said.
Frimpong said Augustave’s pending filings had included a habeas corpus petition challenging his detention, a motion to reopen and an I-485 application to seek a green card from inside the U.S.
His I-130 petition, a family-based request, had already been approved, she said.
“This is what happens when a government decides that due process is a privilege it can revoke at will,” Frimpong said. She added that USCIS had denied the application without reviewing his case.
Jossie Flor Sapunar, the group’s national communications director, said, “The Trump administration deported a shepherd.”
ICE detained Augustave on Sept. 4 after West Manchester Township police stopped him over a broken headlight.
Earlier this year, the township signed an agreement with ICE under the federal 287(g) program, which allows local officers to carry out certain immigration enforcement duties.
Augustave, who is married with two young children, served at the church Iglesia de Dios Voz de Alerta and was held at three ICE detention sites in Pennsylvania and Louisiana.
While held in Louisiana, he sent a prayer, released by We Are CASA, that said, “God, I know you have the last word.” In an opinion piece, he called the public attention a blessing and asked about the 89 others on his first deportation flight. “Who knows their names?” he wrote.
ICE officials were quoted as saying that Border Patrol agents first encountered Augustave in 2016, after he entered the U.S. illegally, and later released him. A judge in immigration court ordered his departure in March 2018, according to ICE.
Augustave had spent six years in Pennsylvania when the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. The status shields people from countries in crisis from deportation. The administration announced the end of Haitian TPS last November, and it expired in July.
In a 6-3 ruling in June in Mullin v. Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the government’s decision to end TPS for Haiti and Syria. The majority held that federal law barred courts from reviewing Department of Homeland Security decisions to extend or end a country’s TPS.
Jose Lopez, a fellow pastor, had urged people to see the father and church leader behind the case. Democratic state Rep. Carol Hill-Evans of Pennsylvania said Augustave had improved York and deserved due process and a fair hearing on his green card bid.
We Are CASA had also called for a fair and thorough review of his application.
