Clement Marcel, who runs a multi-service business and convenience store in Fort Lauderdale, says business has been “dead” ever since Haitians lost their Temporary Protected Status in the United States. He said business wasn’t even this bad during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Clement Marcel sells a little bit of everything in his neighborhood convenience store: $29.99 colognes, plantain chips, press-on nails and immigration services.
But in the days since Haitians suffered one of the biggest losses of immigration protections in recent memory, few customers have stopped by his Fort Lauderdale shop to purchase any of it. In fact, Marcel said foot traffic at his Fort Lauderdale business has nearly vanished.
“Everything is dead right now,” he said, standing in the doorway of the multiservice section of the store.
Several miles south, along Northwest Seventh Avenue in North Miami-Dade County, the same stillness had settled over a warehouse yard where people make a living shipping containers packed with used clothing, furniture and household goods to Haiti for resale.
“The streets are empty,” said Pierre Deshomme, standing among open shipping containers. “You rent a depot and all you do is sit around waiting.”
Nearby, Jacqueline Jean, 60, sat among unsold bales of used clothing, waiting for customers. They were staying home, she said, because they feared encounters with immigration authorities.
“They can’t come out,” Jean said. “How can they?”
After a federal judge acknowledged this week that Temporary Protected Status for more than 300,000 Haitians was over, placing tens of thousands in South Florida in immigration limbo, an unusual quiet has descended over parts of the region’s Haitian community.
So far, the Trump administration does not appear to have launched an enforcement campaign in South Florida to match its aggressive efforts to strip deportation protections from one of the area’s biggest immigrant communities. But with fears of raids and news of Haitians in Springfield, Ohio being outfitted with ankle monitors, Haitians here are retreating indoors, fearful that the ordinary routines of daily life — driving to work, shopping or visiting a barbershop — could expose them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
That withdrawal is creating consequences that extend beyond the immediate question of who might eventually be forced to leave the United States. The end of TPS is beginning to test the economic and social relationship between South Florida and one of its largest immigrant communities, whose presence has added vibrancy to the region’s culture.
Some of the effects are already measurable: Workers have lost jobs at South Florida’s two main international airports and at dozens of hotels, while one of the region’s largest public healthcare systems says dozens of its employees have been affected.
Others are more difficult to quantify. Business owners say customers have disappeared. A Little Haiti education center says attendance in its technology programs has plummeted. Workers who have lost their jobs say they are cutting spending and remittances, a vital lifeline for Haiti’s fragile and unstable economy.
Together, they offer an early look at how the loss of legal status and work authorization for a population deeply embedded in South Florida’s workforce and everyday life can ripple through the economy and community.
READ MORE: ‘Implementing terror’: Miami business owners feel the pain of losing TPS workers
52,000 workers
The end of TPS — announced by the Trump administration on July 27 and confirmed Wednesday when a federal judge lifted her February injunction keeping the protections in place — has consequences for a large swath of America, and especially Florida.
According to figures compiled for this story, some 330,735 Haitian nationals had received TPS approval in the United States as of March 31, though advocates say that the universe of people affected extends well beyond that official number. Among them, about 52,000 Haitian TPS holders were in the workforce in South Florida, according to research by Phillip Connor, a research fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Migration and Development.
Connor’s estimates, derived from an analysis by FWD.us, the Haitian Bridge Alliance and UndocuBlack Network, put about 6,000 of those workers in jobs as cooks and servers, 2,000 as maids and housekeepers, and another 2,000 as security guards.
The analysis estimated that South Florida’s Haitian TPS workforce generated $1.5 billion in annual economic contributions, along with $174 million in federal and payroll taxes and $176 million in state and local taxes.
Those figures offer a measure of the economic activity associated with the population, but not a forecast that all of it will disappear. The ultimate impact depends on how many people lose employment, how many obtain another form of work authorization, whether they remain in South Florida and how employers replace workers who can no longer legally work.
The uncertainty facing those still in the United States adds another complication to assessing the economic consequences of the TPS termination: Losing work authorization does not necessarily mean a worker immediately leaves South Florida, even as the paycheck and spending supported by that job may disappear.
The early evidence suggests the effects will vary significantly from employer to employer and industry to industry. At South Florida’s airports, however, they are already visible.
The lines at Sunrise Airlines, which flies to Haiti, are nonexistent. Few travelers check in for the 3 p.m. flight to Cap-Haitian at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Thursday, August 6, 2026. Carl Juste [email protected]
The workers who kept the airport running
At Miami International Airport, some 33 people have lost their work protections.
And at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, another 132 who benefitted from Haitian TPS were let go by their employers, according to Arlene Satchell, a spokeswoman for the Broward County Aviation Department.
They worked as terminal janitors, aircraft cleaners, wheelchair attendants, baggage handlers, security officers and concession workers, according to Aldo Muirragui, field coordinator for Florida airports for 32BJ SEIU.
The union represents at least 50 workers who lost their jobs.
One of them had cleaned bathrooms and floors at Fort Lauderdale’s Terminal 1 for more than 19 years, one of an untold number of Haitians who had spent years in the United States living in the shadows until the Obama administration decided to shield them from deportations by designating Haiti for TPS after its devastating 2010 earthquake.
The janitor, a 70-year-old Port-au-Prince native, spent roughly two-thirds of that period working the overnight shift, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., cleaning and waxing floors five nights a week. Then, in July, his airport badge was voided and his security clearance disappeared after he lost his work authorization because of the TPS termination.
For the first time in his adult life, he said, he found himself without a job.
“I did my job very well,” he told the Miami Herald, requesting anonymity due to fears that he could be targeted over his immigration status.
“Life was OK, but it’s become more difficult after TPS ended.”
He shares a Fort Lauderdale apartment with a friend who attends the same church, and doesn’t know how long he will be able to keep up with the rent and other expenses.
“The bills don’t care about your status,” he said.
His paycheck once spread through the local economy in ordinary ways. He bought groceries and had hoped to spend money this year improving his apartment. Both have now been curtailed. He also regularly sent money to relatives in Haiti and donated to his church.
The remittances have stopped. The apartment improvements are on hold. “A lot of my money went to church,” he said.
He said his home in Port-au-Prince has since been taken over by gangs. Now, fearful of immigration enforcement in South Florida, he said he spends most of his time at home.
Muirragui, the union representative, said some of the Haitian employees losing their jobs were among the airport’s most experienced workers.
“There are so many experienced people that have been at the airport for decades,” he said.
Airport workers must also go through security and background checks before they can perform many of those jobs, he said.
“It’s going to take a lot more time to replace their knowledge.”
Tessa Petit, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said her organization has heard that following the end of TPS, some remaining employees are working seven days a week to cover shifts and absences at FLL, where contractors are required to ensure quality services regardless of staffing levels.
“We’re going to feel the ripple effect,” Petit said.
Moïse Alex Docteur was among the passengers traveling to Cap-Haïtien, Haiti on Thursday, August 6, 2026, from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Docteur, who lives in Canada after migrating from Haiti, said the loss of Temporary Protected Status has left many Haitians in the community in a panic. Carl Juste [email protected]
From luxury hotels to hospital rooms
Miami’s elected officials have publicly called for a change in position on Haiti TPS.
The region’s three Republican U.S. House members — Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez — supported legislation this spring that, should it pass in the U.S. Senate, would extend TPS protections for Haitians through 2029.
Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins joined the mayors of Boston, Cincinnati and Kansas City, Missouri, in amicus briefs filed with the Supreme Court earlier this year opposing the termination. One brief filed in March warned that the Miami metropolitan area “would be particularly hard-hit if TPS is terminated for Haitian nationals,” citing an estimate that 90,000 Haitian TPS holders lived in the area.
A spokesperson for Jackson Health System said Miami-Dade’s public hospital network lost 50 of its roughly 15,000 employees, but told the Herald that the losses, while unfortunate, would not disrupt care for patients.
Haitians with TPS protections also worked for Miami-Dade County, and for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, though Superintendent Jose Dotres said parents and students wouldn’t see disruptions. On Friday, Dotres seemed more worried about Haitian parents receding from public life, and taking their children with them.
“Parents should not keep their children at home. Please bring them to school,” Dotres said, telling families that district staff would “provide the appropriate resources, the reach-out, that you may need to resolve some of that anxiety.”
In the private sector, hotels also stood to lose important workers, said Wendi Walsh, secretary-treasurer of Unite Here Local 355.
“You’re terminating employees with lots of experience,” Walsh said. “All that’s going to do is put pressure on the workers left behind.”
Healthcare and elder care have generated particular concern because many Haitians worked as home health aids and certified nursing assistants caring for patients and elderly residents.
But the effects are not confined to people already in the workforce, or those who had the temporary protections. Even Haitians who have been naturalized or hold green cards are keeping a low profile, fearful of being caught in an immigration raid.
At the Pierre Toussaint Leadership and Learning Center, affiliated with Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church in Little Haiti, adults have long taken classes designed to improve their literacy and technology skills and help them compete for better jobs.
In peak years, as many as about 250 people attended the center’s technology classes, according to executive director Jean Souffrant. Now fewer than 100 are showing up.
The adult literacy program has also experienced its largest enrollment decline in years, he said. Those who still attend technology classes barely talk to one another or their instructor.
“That’s because they are living in fear, absolute fear,” Souffrant said. “It’s been really rough.”
The decline has placed Souffrant in an unusual position.
Part of his job has been persuading people to participate in programs intended to improve their economic prospects. Now he is hesitant to encourage them to leave their homes.
“It’s hard to even encourage people to come,” he said, “because you don’t want to be the person responsible for them getting sent back.”
Business at Clement Income Tax Plus Services, a multi-service business and convenience store in Fort Lauderdale, has been “dead” ever since Haitians lost their Temporary Protected Status in the United States, the owner says. Carl Juste [email protected]
An economy that stretches to Haiti
For Jean-Marie Denis, the Haitian writer and Little Haiti cultural activist better known by his pen name, Jan Mapou, the withdrawal of Haitians from public life evokes something from Haiti’s past.
He called it marronage.
The term dates to the era of slavery, when enslaved Africans in what would become Haiti escaped bondage and harsh treatment by fleeing deep into the mountains, where some built independent communities and helped plot the revolution that would eventually create their country.
Denis sees echoes of that survival strategy in the behavior of Haitians in South Florida and elsewhere across the United States, where many have withdrawn from public view.
“They are utilizing the system of marronage to not invite problems for themselves, to protect their children and to protect themselves,” he said.
“It’s not an agreeable situation at all,” Denis said, sitting inside his Little Haiti bookstore, devoid of customers. “It’s grave.”
The problem even extends to Haiti, given that Haitians living abroad sent an estimated $5 billion to the Caribbean nation last year, according to the country’s central bank.
In Fort Lauderdale, Marcel’s store, with its convenient ATM, is one of the places customers have used when sending money to help pay for school fees, medical needs, rent and even food — according to the United Nations, more than half of Haiti’s 12 million people are going hungry.
“People used to send money to Haiti,” Marcel said. “They don’t send anything anymore … They can’t even afford to pay their bills. How are they going to send money to Haiti?”
For Marcel, the issue is personal.
He has been organizing a Dec. 20 gala at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts through his ClamB Foundation, which helps pay for children’s education in Haiti. Tickets cost $100, and the event is expected to feature Tonton Bicha, a popular Haitian comedian and cultural figure.
Before the end of TPS, Marcel hoped members of South Florida’s Haitian community would fill the seats.
Now he isn’t sure.
“We are still very skeptical,” he said. “People who used to have TPS can’t afford to pay for the ticket, and now they are afraid of going out.”
“You are thinking about the kids who depend on the support, and you’re wondering what’s going to happen to them.”
The consequences of the end of Haiti TPS to South Florida remain difficult to predict.
Some affected workers may obtain another form of authorization. Employers may replace others. Businesses and workers may adjust.
Much of the detailed economic modeling available on Haitian TPS holders has also been produced by immigration advocacy organizations or researchers analyzing Census data, while independent projections of the long-term net economic impact remain limited.
But the first days after the protections ended show that an economic effect does not require tens of thousands of Haitians to physically leave South Florida. A janitor can lose a paycheck and stop renovating his apartment, sending money to Haiti and contributing as much to his church. A dishwasher can stop buying clothes and shoes. Students can stop attending technology classes, customers can stop shopping.
For Marcel, who has spent 15 years building his business, there is little choice but to keep going. He said he plans to keep his employees, because he knows they have nowhere else to go.
“You’re here to grow your business and if you close, you’re going to be working for Walmart,” he said. For now, he is trying to cover one day’s expenses with whatever money comes through the door. “You try to cover your day-to-day by robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Miami Herald reporters Michael Butler, Howard Cohen, Claire Heddles, Austin Horn and Tess Riski contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 7, 2026 at 7:02 PM.
Churchill Ndonwie
Miami Herald
Churchill Ndonwie is an Esserman Investigative Fellow at The Miami Herald. Before this role, he was an Ida B. Wells investigative intern with the New York Times, where he examined the hidden pipeline of undocumented workers into U.S. factories and the victimization those individuals experienced. He was also a Global Migrations Fellow at Columbia Journalism Investigations, where he worked with Reuters to investigate and reveal the smuggling routes through commercial and charter airlines used to facilitate illegal immigration to the U.S. Southern border from India and West Africa.
Jacqueline Charles
Miami Herald
Jacqueline Charles has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the Miami Herald for over a decade. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she was awarded a 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize — the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.
