Volunteer attorneys line up outside the City Bar building before the start of a TPS clinic for Haitian nationals. Photo from New York City Bar.

Imagine, one day, your phone rings and the caller says they are calling from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). They say something is wrong with your Temporary Protective Status application, and that you are at risk of deportation. 

To fix it, they give you an ultimatum: Send them thousands of dollars or the filing errors remain on your record. You deplete your savings out of desperation. Yet as the weeks go by, you don’t hear anything.

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Larisa is a reporter for The Haitian Times covering politics, elections and education primarily. A graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, she has interned at CNBC and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. She is also a recipient of a 2021 DBEI Fellowship by Investigative Reporters & Editors. Larisa can be reached by email at larisa@haitiantimes.com or on Twitter @larisakarr.