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By Joshua Rhett Miller and Billal Rahman
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A pastor has been deported 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, was deported to Haiti on Thursday, September 24, after being held in immigration detention for 19 days, national immigrant advocacy group We Are CASA said in a news release on Thursday.
"ICE scheduled him on a deportation flight on September 17. However, we got him pulled off the flight at the last minute because of the pressure to review his I-485 green card application," the group said. "DHS rushed to deny it two business days later on September 21 and then thrust him on a flight to Haiti on September 24."
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The 33-year-old remains separated from his wife Omara Nunez and their two young children, the release added. "His wife, Omara, and two young children, Isaac and Sofia, are now left to face an empty seat at the table tonight."
The father of two previously held Temporary Protected Status before the Trump administration ended the program for roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals in late July and had been a pillar of his community prior to his detention, advocates said.
"He has built his life around service to others," American Families United, a national immigration advocacy group, said in a statement. "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?"
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“The Trump administration deported a shepherd,” said We Are CASA spokesperson Jossie Flor Sapunar. “The federal government feared a Black man from Haiti who loved his wife, cared for his children, pastored a congregation, and made a people-powered movement.
Augustave said in a statement released Monday by the group: "I want to go home to my wife and children in Pennsylvania."
While in detention, Augustave said 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.
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"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."
We Are CASA spokeswoman Jossie Flor Sapunar told Newsweek 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.
Augustave had initially been detained by U.S. Border Patrol near San Ysidro, California, after entering the U.S. illegally in July 2016, DHS officials said. He was later released, although an immigration judge later issued a final order of removal in March 2018.
"Being in detention is a choice," the agency's statement continued. "We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens $3,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return."
Partnerships with law enforcement are critical to the agency's mission to "arrest criminal illegal aliens" nationwide, DHS officials said.
"Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, if you break the law, you will face the consequences," a DHS spokesperson told Newsweek. "We have had tremendous success when local law enforcement works together with us, including 40,000 arrests in Florida and a two-week operation in West Virginia that resulted in the arrest of over 650 illegal aliens."
Proponents at AFU said Augustave's dire situation is hardly uncommon.
"This is not an isolated case," AFU officials said in a statement Tuesday. "At American Families United, we see bureaucratic hurdles like this used to make life harder for family members of U.S. citizens every day. This is another example of an immigration system that punishes the very people who strengthen our communities, and that treats American citizen spouses and children as collateral damage in decisions that should never have gone this way."
Nunez, who is a U.S. citizen, said she's struggling to maintain her household as her husband remains held by federal immigration authorities.
"Every day I wonder what the future holds," Nunez said in a statement obtained by Newsweek. "I have my kids to take care of so I cannot not think through next steps. [Do] our lives continue with him here? What if he is deported?"
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas
Update 9/25/26, 10:03 a.m. ET: A news release from We Are CASA on Thursday has been reflected.
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