Name: Family reunited after a decade - now a Trump clampdown could tear them apart | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-11-26T17:01:35.000Z
Duration: 11 min 53 s
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By the side of the road at the edge of the Everglades, people gather in protest.

Not in our watch, not in our nation, not to our neighbors space to receive illegal immigrants that President Trump promised to crack down on.

In just months, around 350,000 Haitians who've been living here legally are set to lose their right to stay.

Everyone here has come to protest against the opening of this new controversial detention facility known as Alligator Alcatraz.

There are hundreds of men and women that have been brought here from Latin America, the Caribbean, and

Now, we can't know for sure how many are in there right now, but

And every day, more and more immigrants are being brought here as they fight their case to day.

It's become a powerful symbol of Trump's tougher stance on immigration.

In 2010, Haiti was given temporary protected status by President Obama following the devastating earthquake.

The idea of it is simple to offer refuge to people from countries struck by disaster or violence.

You know, there are so many people out there that say President Trump was democratically elected.

You know, he was quite clear about his immigration policies before he took office, that it was an America first policy, that he was going to be tougher on immigration.

I'd say so many people who voted for President Trump thought he was going to go after violing gang members, because that's what he said he was going to do.

From Little Haiti in Miami to neighborhoods across the state, Florida's Haitian community has shaped the culture and economy here.

Even though their status is temporary by name, it allows people to establish lawful lives in the US Joining the workforce, paying taxes, and

supporting their communities instead of remaining undocumented.

For families like Marvin's, this not only meant safety, but the chance to be together.

He was adopted by an American family at the age of three.

His biological mother, Guerleen, gave him up in Haiti, hoping he'd have a better life.

It must have been so hard as a mum to decide to take your son to the orphanage and to give him up for adoption because of the way life was at the time.

It scarred me when you've given birth to a child and then you have that baby taken away.

Years later, she and his sister Rochelle were able to reunite with him as conditions in Haiti worsened.

What I was most afraid of Is, I must say, getting kidnapped, because I've seen, like, I was at school and I've seen young girl like me get kidnapped, and

then even they asked a ransom for them, and then they didn't get them back.

Or it's either they raped them and they killed them.

I don't get to go to school yet because with everything that's happening.

So right now, I just like working and help some of my family back in Haiti because they cannot work.

Stacy Marvin's adoptive mother is doing all she can to keep the family together, but

His sister Rochelle is now too old for Stacy to adopt, and

so these two siblings could have very different futures.

I dreamt of a world where he would be loved and able to have an education.

And to be honest, I dreamt of a world where he could eventually go back and find a way to serve his home country again if he so chose.

I did vote all three times, all three terms for President Trump.

Historically, I feel that the Republican Party in the United States is completely out of touch with their voting base and how we feel about this immigration issue.

But to rip families apart like ours and deport.

Deport people to countries where it's absolutely unsafe and they're facing uncertain death on day one of arriving back in their home country is unthinkable and unconscionable.

Trump is delivering on his immigration promises that millions of Americans voted for.

Now Stacy wonders if her vote helped create what her son fears most.

How do you feel about the prospect that they might be sent back to Haiti?

I don't really know how to put it in words.

I definitely think it is going to be very hard.

I don't want to have to imagine having to watch them have to go back on a plane, me not knowing if I can talk to them or what's going to happen to them if they have to go back.

What is it that worries you if they get sent back?

I'm just scared that I'll lose contact with them again and I might never see them again after I've built all this, all these great memories and things already with them.

I love my sister very much, and I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to her.

And this is where they're at risk of being sent back to Port au Prince, Haiti.

We were there just five months ago and found a city in ruins where gangs now control 90% of the capital.

1.4 million people displaced nationwide, living in camps, ravaged by disease and malnutrition.

For now, Marvin's family are living in limbo, but

local Republican chair Sam Romaine says their status in America was always temporary.

If you built your life for 20 years on a temporary status, I have a really hard time feeling bad for that.

When all of a sudden the temporary status suddenly expires.

You built your life on a temporary status.

And now that you're upset, it's expiring.

And so this is where immigration law becomes challenging, is that I do think immigration policy reform does need to happen, but

I think temporary protector status is based on two your country having gone through a natural disaster or your country being unsafe to go back to.

And it's temporary until those things are resolved, until your country is safe enough to go back to.

Who is the arbiter of when this country is safe or not safe?

I am not qualified to make that decision.

I believe that somewhere the United States has put out a travel advisory saying American citizens, citizens can't go back to Haiti because it's unsafe.

They're saying you'll keep them here temporarily until their country is safe enough to go back to, but

It goes back to what I said earlier, too, right.

That I do believe that our government has the best interest of, quite honestly, the world in mind in most scenarios.

So do I believe there would be a rug pull?

But if the country is deemed to go back safe to go back to, then that was the understanding.

Like you also said that they were here on the understanding that they would be here until the country is safe.