Fourteen members of Carolou’s family moved to Juneau after fleeing unrest in Haiti.
“My country is not doing well right now,” she said.
Carolou has protected status in the United States, but is using an old family nickname in this story because that protection ends in August.
Immigrants and refugees across the country are getting emails from the Trump administration that say they have to leave the United States or face prosecution.
“Do not attempt to remain in the United States,” the email Carolou’s family received reads. “The federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”
She said her family was heartbroken when some of them got the email.
Carolou has a sister who already lives in Canada, so seven members of the family went quickly to join her – including her sister and daughter.
“They just left because they can’t stay, they are scared,” she said. “And we are separate again.”
They arrived in Juneau just last year, so their immigration status is not as secure as other members of the family.
Many immigrants in Juneau have a couple of different forms of temporary legal status, which make it easier for people fleeing violence and instability to get to the United States compared to the sometimes more than a decade-long process to gain refugee status.
Carolou has temporary residency and works as a paraeducator. She has been in Juneau for more than a decade. She and her family members have built lives here.
This same email has gone out to tens of thousands of people who legally entered the U.S. through a mobile app — CPB One. During the Biden administration, this app was how immigrants were able to make appointments with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to seek asylum at legal points of entry instead of crossing the border illegally.
President Donald Trump has pledged to not only end some of these temporary statuses, but revoke them before they expire.
Margaret Stock is an immigration attorney in Anchorage. She said she’s seen the email, and she doesn’t think it’s legally enforceable.
“The messages do not appear to actually have any legal force of law, and they don’t, you know, there’s no such thing as an email message ordering you to leave the country that’s legally effective,” she said. “You have to have a deportation order from a judge.”
Stock said it’s not even clear if the people who received the email are actually on immigration enforcement’s radar. The emails weren’t addressed to any names.
She said she thinks it was meant to scare people into leaving, which aligns with the Trump administration’s goal to remove immigrants from the United States.
But she said forcing immigrants to leave Alaska is especially damaging to the state’s economy — like Carolou, many work in fields that are understaffed.
“We have huge shortages in the health care industry and teaching profession and assisted living facilities, service workers, the tourism industry,” she said. “You know, there’s, like, actually no sector of the economy right now I think that has enough workers in Alaska that I can think of.”
Carolou’s son helped her apply for permanent residency, but she said it was rejected because of a missed signature on one of the forms. She plans to try again.
Carolou’s temporary status has usually been extended for immigrants from countries where instability remains a risk to its citizens’ health and safety. But Trump has vowed to end that status for Haitians, even though the dangers there haven’t gone away. As of right now, she would have to leave in August.
Organized crime runs Haiti, and according to Human Rights Watch, it’s only getting worse. So Carolou says she can’t go back.
“In Haiti I will be murdered. I will be murdered if I go there,” she said. “They will kill me. And this government is still the same. Nothing’s changed. Nothing. It could be suicide if I go to Haiti.”
Carolou says she likes Juneau, but it’s hard to see her family leave. Before they were reunited in Juneau, she missed being able to hug them.
“As a mother, I suffer,” she said.
Now, she misses her daughter again, but doesn’t want to leave her job as a paraeducator – and the responsibility of care for her aging parents.
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