A central Pennsylvania pastor who entered the country legally, filed for a green card, and was complying with ICE reporting requirements now sits in a Miami detention facility awaiting a Thursday deportation flight to Haiti, and his advocates say the timeline is too fast for due process.

Molis Augustave, a Haitian-born pastor who has lived in York, Pennsylvania, for roughly six years, was pulled over by West Manchester police on September 5 for a broken headlight. That routine traffic stop ended with his arrest and transfer to a federal immigration facility in Louisiana. By Wednesday morning, immigration officials had moved him to Miami, where he awaits a deportation flight scheduled for Thursday.

His attorneys at the advocacy organization We Are CASA filed a habeas corpus petition, a legal challenge to his detention, Wednesday morning, racing to halt the removal before the plane leaves the ground. But attorney Ama Frimpong acknowledged the timeline works against them.

Augustave entered the U.S. legally and had an approved immigration petition

Augustave arrived in the United States in July 2016 under a lawful parole entry to seek asylum. His asylum claim was denied, but he received Temporary Protected Status, a federal designation that shielded him from detention or deportation. He has lived in the country for approximately ten years, the last six in York, where he served as a pastor and started a family. He has a two-year-old son and a wife named Omara.

In August 2024, Augustave filed an I-130 petition, the first formal step toward obtaining a green card, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. That petition was approved. He then filed an I-485 application for permanent residence, which only USCIS can process and decide. That application remains pending.

President Trump removed Temporary Protected Status for all Haitians last month, stripping the legal shield Augustave had relied on. Without TPS, Augustave became removable despite his pending green card paperwork.

If he is deported, his I-485 application becomes moot. He would have to restart the entire process from Haiti, facing the additional barrier of a removal order on his record, even though he is married to a U.S. citizen with an approved I-130.

West Manchester police had a financial agreement with ICE

The traffic stop that led to Augustave's arrest was not a coincidence of timing alone. West Manchester police are among departments that have agreements with ICE to receive money in exchange for helping make immigration arrests. Augustave's advocates argue this arrangement turned a broken headlight into a deportation pipeline.

Frimpong, the We Are CASA attorney, raised a pointed procedural question: Augustave had been lawfully complying with ICE reporting requirements under an order of supervision. Whether ICE properly terminated those reporting requirements before arresting him remains unclear.

Frimpong told PennLive:

"He was lawfully complying with his ICE reporting requirements under an order of supervision and it is unclear whether ICE has actually complied with the requirements to terminate his reporting requirements when they arrested him and as they are trying to deport him."

Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security has issued a public statement about Augustave's case or the deportation timeline, based on available reporting.

Advocates call the deportation speed an attempt to block due process

Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said Augustave is the third Haitian pastor she has seen deported. She questioned whether the government rushed the process precisely because Augustave has a strong legal case.

"Could it be because they know he has a strong case? It is possible they are moving him out so fast to deprive him of the time he needs for due process."

Frimpong described the deportation timeline as "egregious" and said it is unlikely a federal court could consider a stay given the speed of the proceedings. She said attorneys plan to reopen an asylum claim for Augustave and vowed to fight the removal up to the last moment.

"Even at this last hour, at this very moment, we continue to work vigorously to try to halt Molis's deportation and if we have to get to a point where he is pulled off of a plane because of a judge's order that is what we are going to continue fighting for."

The broader legal battles over TPS termination have played out across multiple immigrant communities, with federal courts weighing the administration's authority to end protections that had been in place for years.

Jozef frames the case as an attack on Haitian Christians

Jozef went further than a procedural complaint, casting the deportations in religious terms:

"Haitian Christians [in America] are under attack. We see the churches are being emptied. Parents are afraid to take their children to school. They are afraid to go to church, so this is an attack on Christian clergy people who are caring for their neighbors."

She called on Christians to reach out to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's administration and urged the Haitian government to reject Augustave's deportation. Haiti has not had a president since 2021, raising practical questions about the stability and governance awaiting deportees.

Jossie Flor Sapunar, We Are CASA's national communications director, framed Augustave's case as proof that compliance with the system offers no protection. She said the Shapiro administration is reviewing the case but that the organization had not yet received a response.

"Pastor Molis is someone who did things 'the right way,' as the federal administration likes to say. This is not about lawful or not lawful. This is not about safe versus unsafe. This is purely an attempt at cleansing people who look like Molis, who have an accent like him, out of the country."

The pace of ICE deportation flights to Haiti has accelerated sharply under the current administration, with multiple flights carrying Haitian nationals back to the Caribbean nation in recent months.

Shapiro's office has not acted publicly

Olga Galati, We Are CASA's Pennsylvania deputy director, learned of Augustave's imminent deportation while attending the Pennsylvania State of the Union on Latino Health on Wednesday. She adjusted her scheduled remarks to call directly on Governor Shapiro for help.

"I don't know what can stop the federal government at this point, but Gov. Shapiro has more power than all of us who know and love Pastor Molis."

Advocates want Shapiro to contact DHS leadership directly to intervene. But Shapiro, a Democrat, has not made any public statement on Augustave's case. His administration's review, as described by Sapunar, has produced no visible action.

Pennsylvania State Senator Patty Kim attended a rally Monday and called on the federal government to renew Temporary Protected Status for Haitian residents, a request that runs directly counter to the administration's policy direction. The broader expansion of ICE enforcement has made clear the federal government is moving toward more removals, not fewer.

What remains unanswered

Several questions hang over Augustave's case. ICE and DHS have not explained publicly why a man with a pending green card application and a record of compliance with reporting requirements was fast-tracked for removal. Whether ICE followed its own procedures in terminating his order of supervision before arresting him remains unresolved. And the habeas petition filed Wednesday morning, the last legal tool available on this timeline, faces the near-impossible task of reaching a federal judge before a Thursday morning flight.

Augustave's case sits at the intersection of two realities. He entered the country lawfully, filed his paperwork, reported to ICE as required, married a U.S. citizen, had a child, and served his community as a pastor. He also had a denied asylum claim and lost his TPS protection when the administration ended the program for Haitians.

The immigration system is supposed to sort those realities out through a process. Whether that process had time to work before the deportation flight leaves is the question no one in authority has answered.