Overview:
Shermilla, an 18-year-old Haitian immigrant living in Brooklyn, arrived in the United States legally in 2023. She excelled in high school, worked part-time, and sent money to relatives in Haiti. But now she’s in perpetual limbo, as U.S. immigration policies continue to disrupt the lives and futures of young Haitian newcomers.
Editor’s Note: This article uses a pseudonym for the student portrayed to protect their privacy and safety, per The Haitian Times policy on handling sensitive stories that may cause harm if the identities of the people were to be revealed. Certain key details about the subject’s locations, relatives, workplaces and educational institutions are also withheld to minimize potential harm related to immigration enforcement.
NEW YORK — Three years ago, Shermilla was a 14-year-old living in southern Haiti. Her responsibilities were limited to household chores, helping with errands and excelling in school.
She was in “troisième secondaire,” the equivalent of 10th grade, and on track to make her school’s honor roll.
Then came the news. A relative living in Brooklyn had offered to sponsor Shermilla’s mother through the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program. Her parents decided Shermilla should go instead, believing the opportunity would give her a better education and help secure the family’s future.
“I was young and they decided I should come for school, get a good education and send money to help everyone live,” Shermilla, now 18, recalls.
“In Haiti, it’s not that safe for a young girl to get up and go to school every day because of the gang violence,” she explained. “So I thought life was going to be easy, in every way.
“In reality, it’s not that.”
Before landing in a new world, Shermilla threw herself into life in Brooklyn, learning and working hard — intent on making the most of her arrival in America to make her family proud. Now, she is among an estimated 525,000 undocumented students on college campuses across the country – specifically one of the roughly 19,000 from Haiti, according to the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.
But getting to higher education has been a journey, one that echoes the challenges nearly 2,000 undocumented high school grads from Haiti are likely facing. Although Shermilla is enrolled now, getting into college is a study in how Washington’s immigration policies are disrupting the lives of newly undocumented Haitians here. Between the financial pressure and specter of ICE looming, whether she can remain enrolled is still a mystery.
Here is her story.
Chapter 1: $400 back home every month
When Shermilla arrived in Brooklyn, she wasted no time making the most of her opportunities. With her academic records from Haiti and strong scores on an English proficiency exam, she enrolled in a local high school as a 10th grader. Once she turned 16, she began working part time, like other teenagers she had befriended.
As a youth camp counselor, Shermilla helped elementary school-aged children with homework after school, led activities with them during school breaks and listened to them share thoughts about their home life. Off work, she sent most of her earnings to Haiti.
With her $ 17-per-hour wage, Shermilla took home $850 to $900 a month. With each check, though, she sent about $400 home to her mother and stepmother to help support her three younger siblings. She kept just enough for her hair, nails and clothes.
Shermilla juggled a demanding schedule, earning top grades in school, working an after-school job and returning to the crowded apartment she shared with a distant relative and, at times, others, where she was responsible for cooking and cleaning.
She also became active in her church, joining the choir and occasionally going on trips to get a break from home.
As she entered her senior year in high school in fall 2025, several teachers told her that with her excellent grades and hardworking attitude, she should apply to colleges. Shermilla did, including schools far from the city, where she could live on her own and have more space away from the crowded apartment.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration was ramping up immigration enforcement and threatening mass deportation. With her work authorization tied to the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program expiring, Shermilla did what many Haitians who had entered the United States through the program did. She applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and waited for a decision.
That fall, the Trump administration also announced plans to terminate TPS for Haitians on Feb. 3. Shermilla remained hopeful she would be granted TPS and stayed focused on her job and school.
Then came January 2026.The first blow of the Trump administration’s immigration policies that really hit home for her.
Chapter 2: College beckons
That month, her employers at the youth camp told Shermilla she could no longer work there because her work authorization under the Biden program had expired. Furthermore, the TPS application she had pending had not been approved – leaving her in legal immigration limbo as an undocumented migrant.
Or, as the administration characterizes people like her in between status, “an illegal alien.”
Days after Shermilla was let go, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes placed a temporary hold on the termination of TPS. That ruling allowed some who already had TPS approvals to continue working legally while the federal government appealed the judge’s decision to the Supreme Court.
However, the decision did little for Shermilla. No new jobs would hire her because her TPS application status remained pending.
“Stopping me from working is what affects my entire family,” Shermilla explained. “As my mother’s oldest child, when I can’t work, they don’t get anything at the end of the month that they were hoping for. So that’s not easy.”
She prayed that someone would do something to let her back to work. And she focused more on school. When graduation came in June, Shermilla was featured as a top student.
With the encouragement she received, Shermilla applied to more colleges. Twenty-six colleges accepted her.
Two colleges offered her full-tuition scholarships. One was local, while the other was a few states away. Shermilla was especially excited about the out-of-state school, where she would only need to cover room and board, and saw it as a way out of her relative’s crowded apartment.
Up to that point, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was a curiosity to her. As of spring, she didn’t know anyone ICE had stopped. She only saw them on social media and TV.
She worried more about working than about ICE detentions.
“Whenever I go outside, my angel will protect me and God is always with me, so I don’t worry about them,” she said.
As she celebrated graduation at the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security could terminate TPS.
That was blow number two.
Attending the out-of-state school was no longer an option. She had been counting on working to support her throughout college. But now, with TPS no longer available, that didn’t bode well.
Simultaneously, ICE was starting to detain people all over the country. Staying in New York City was safer.
Still, Shermilla kept praying that something, someone, would restore TPS. Her application on the immigration portal still stayed “Pending” as the status.
Chapter 3: ‘Explosions’ in the home
But as news of ICE detentions spread and more employers let workers go, Shermilla stuck with her only choice. The New York option.
Like other college-bound teens, she created a supplies wishlist for friends and family to help afford items.
Meanwhile, tensions were rising at home.
Shermilla and the relative who sponsored her had struggled to get along since she arrived in Brooklyn in 2023. Shermilla said she was expected to handle much of the cooking and cleaning, responsibilities she considered excessive. Her parents in Haiti urged her to do the chores as a way of showing gratitude to the relative who had brought her to the United States.
Over the summer, the strain intensified. The relative, a TPS holder who had supported themselves through years of work in Brooklyn, also lost their job, Shermilla said.
With her job gone, Shermilla was home more often too. She hated that.
To avoid disputes, she decided to attend church services more often on weekdays. Partly, the services helped her avoid spending more time at home than necessary. But above all, she went to pray. Pray that she could work again.
At church, some people knew she wasn’t working. A few gave her a $20 bill here and a $10 bill there to help out. In all, she figures she received about $70 each month from kindhearted folks.
It was a fraction of what she earned at a job. But still, it was something.
They give what they can, but they’re just making a gesture, you know,” she said. “Everyone has stuff to do with their money.”
Chapter 4: ‘Someone needs to say something’
By the time graduation wrapped up and Shermilla needed to finalize her college choice, the TPS picture had grown bleaker.
The same week she graduated, the Supreme Court decided DHS, which oversees immigration programs, could terminate TPS for Haitians and Syrians. The justices’ ruling meant Reyes had to remove her February order barring the termination in about 30 days.
Some TPS holders kept working. Others were let go from their jobs in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Florida—everywhere.
So, Shermilla prayed. And she still tried to find odd jobs during those weeks filled with ICE sightings. But no one would hire her as a new worker.
Former classmates, many of them Haitian with documents, were working. Some were starting to get ready for college.
“It doesn’t make me feel good,” she said with a sigh, her voice catching. “I know I can work, I have the strength and courage to work. But the country isn’t letting me do anything now because of my status.
“I know a lot of people go through a lot of misery before they get their papers, so I’m being patient.”
That conversation took place in late July, days before another work permit deadline for Haitian TPS holders went into effect. Shermilla was still praying for “someone to say something” that would allow TPS holders to remain in the United States.
Asked what she thought could be done, Shermilla suggested that pastors across the Haitian community write a letter and gather signatures.
“Maybe all the pastors in the community could write a letter and everyone can sign it,” she said.
When she learned that churches, businesses and community members had already been circulating and signing similar letters for months, her response was brief.
“Oh,” she said.
Chapter 5: ICE goes viral
As the 30-day deadline approached in July for the lower court judge to lift the injunction against terminating TPS, advocates implored Haitian TPS holders who had not obtained a different legal status by then to prepare for the next phase of their lives.
Community leaders held emergency meetings, increased the frequency of ‘know-your-rights’ workshops and sounded off about the intensifying mental health crisis.
Across the country, more reports of ICE detaining people emerged.
On the weekend of July 24, days after videos showing ICE agents detaining people and pulling them off buses circulated widely online, Shermilla traveled out of state on a previously planned church prayer retreat. She made the trip by bus.
“I’m not scared,” she said of her decision. “I still have faith in God. I’m not here by accident. I didn’t bring myself here. God did, so I know God won’t let anything bad happen to me.”
Days later, on Monday, July 27, the federal government moved forward with ending TPS for Haitians.
A few days later, Shermilla logged into her USCIS account and found a message saying her pending TPS application had been denied and her case closed.
“I was expecting it,” she said.
Chapter 6: New door opens
Throughout the summer, Shermilla rarely left her home. Her routine rarely varied.
Sleep, get up, shower, watch courtroom shows like Judge Judy.
Clean, cook, watch TikTok videos. Maybe the gym on days with free days for students.
Search for a job.
That was her routine.
“I see so many things I could be doing, but can’t because I don’t have a status,” she told me one day in August, her voice catching. “It’s like I’m going backward.”
As August wound down, her high school friends and camp counselor peers started heading to school. Those going to SUNY schools actually left Brooklyn.
With the TPS denial, she let go of the dream of studying out of state.
She spent hours in her inbox, corresponding with the other school that offered her a scholarship. The local one.
They told her she could still attend. She would have to meet in person to go over the financials.
The Tuesday she went in was one day after Pierre Damas Bel died by suicide by running in front of a semi tractor-trailer tanker in Springfield, Ohio. She has seen the news of the high-achieving young man, who had just started college but ‘walked in shame’ after ICE fitted an ankle monitor around his left foot. The news greatly upset Shermilla. She asked not to discuss it.
At school, she learned she was no longer eligible for the Pell and TAP grants she had been counting on because she had no money.
That was the third blow.
They told her she would have to pay $3,500 out of pocket.
She told them she didn’t have that kind of money. What could she do?
She could pay in installments of $875 monthly, they said. She didn’t have that money either. Neither did the relative who sponsored her.
One relative suggested she wait until January. She saw that as out of the question. Not only would she lose the partial scholarship she received, but she also couldn’t see spending more days idle or being rejected over and over for work.
Relatives in Haiti were still calling for help with staples and school fees.
“I’ve already sat here all summer doing nothing, just waiting for school. I can’t sit here for another four months.
“Tatie,” she said in a teary phone call, using the word for auntie, “I really don’t feel good at all. I don’t feel good.”
Throughout the summer, I asked her about returning to Haiti. Why not leave voluntarily? Why not pursue what the Department of Homeland Security calls “self-deportation”? What did her family think?
Shermilla’s answer was always the same.
“What am I going to do in Haiti, the way the country is,” she responded, echoing what her parents have said to her. “When the money they give runs out, what am I going to do there?”
I asked again after the school laid out her financial options.
“I didn’t like how they spoke to me at all,” she confided to her family. “They said they had done all they could to send me here, so now it was up to me to find a way to stay.”
Shermilla continued talking with the college. Officials told her she could start classes that semester if she agreed to begin making payments in January. But the monthly payments would be higher — $1,500 — to cover tuition for both the fall and spring semesters.
“It’s stressing me out, because I don’t have all that money,” she explained, sounding much calmer during a conversation on Sept. 4.
By then, she had purchased some of her school wishlist items. So she was optimistic about her first day of school in September, even though she had no work.
“Now, I just have to do everything I can to earn that money,” she added. “I’m not going to do anything that’s not right. I just need to work.
“This is the real world I’m in.”
