The rebirth of Charleroi’s First United Methodist Church started with a gesture by Carolyn McCuen.
At the end of a Sunday service six or seven years ago, the 87-year-old McCuen saw a large Nigerian man trying to enter through a side door.
“Our service is over. Are you looking for a church?” she said she asked him.
He was, and she drove the man, who went by Samuel, to another service in town. But Samuel later said his encounter with McCuen was the first time a white person had shown him real kindness. And so he not only began attending services at First United every week but invited other immigrants to join him.
Pastor Randy Ord says welcoming strangers is what Christians are called upon to do.
“The Bible tells us that we are to help those in need,” he said. “So how they got here and why they're here and all the minutiae of that is kind of irrelevant to me.”
And they kept arriving. Many of Samuel’s friends were, like him, from Africa. But in 2021 he brought along a roommate, Acner Pierre, who was among the first of hundreds of Haitian migrants who have moved to Charleroi. Many of the new arrivals were driven from Haiti by a wave of chaos back home, and they were drawn to Charleroi by jobs at Fourth Street Barbecue, a frozen-food factory just outside of town.
Pierre, who studied English in high school, began translating the church service into Haitian-Creole. That drew other Haitian families without cars who could walk to the service.
“I keep coming, coming, coming, and the people at the church really know me,” Pierre said.
Membership at First United has grown by around 50% the past few years, Ord said. More than a third of his congregation is now made up of Haitian families.
“The future of this church, if it survives, will be because of immigrant population,” Ord said.
Two Methodist churches he serves nearby are struggling with aging congregations, and there has been talk of consolidation. But in Charleroi, “We have babies and it’s really nice to hear them in the service, cooing and talking,” said McCuen, whose own parents brought her to First United as a baby.
Most local leaders tell a similar tale of Charleroi itself — a story that contrasts sharply to other parts of the Mon Valley. An influx of immigrants has meant that Charleroi’s population, long in decline, has returned to levels not seen since the 1970s. With the new arrivals have come new businesses and newly refurbished houses.
“They fixed up so many buildings in the town and filled so many storefronts compared to where we were at,” said Leanna Spada, the executive director of the Mon Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce.
But not everyone feels as thought the community has benefited. And the Trump administration’s recent decision to change the immigration status of many Haitians means that the revival of Ord’s church — and the community it serves — is in jeopardy.
‘If they want me to go back today, I will go’
Haitians were first granted Temporary Protected Status to remain in the United States in 2010 after a devastating earthquake in their country. That status allows them to live and work in the U.S. and was renewed repeatedly as conditions in Haiti failed to improve. President Biden granted it to a new group of emigres in 2021, as gangs took over the country and Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated.
But last month, Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, announced that the protected status would expire after Aug. 5. Experts estimate that more than 5 million immigrants in the United States have that status, including Pierre and most other Haitians in Charleroi. If they haven’t left the country by then, they’ll be eligible for deportation.
Pierre’s main hope is that Trump will have a change of heart, though there seems little chance of that given the anti-immigrant tone of Trump’s 2024 campaign. Trump himself called out Charleroi’s immigrant community last summer, telling an audience in Arizona that Charleroi had “a beautiful name, but it's not so beautiful now.”
Trump “can decide whatever he wants to decide and even if it's not good for us, there's nothing we can fight against that,” Pierre acknowledged. So like many Haitians in town, he said, he is formulating a backup plan. He’s planning to ask friends in Canada if they can sponsor him to move there.
Dorval, who asked to be referred to only by his first name in case he has to return to Haiti, said he will do so in June if nothing changes. Dorval used to work at the Quality Pasta factory in Charleroi before it shut down last year; he now works for a contractor who fixes houses. Dorval recently bought his own house in Charleroi from his boss, so his wife and year-old son in Haiti could join him. Now he says he’ll likely have to sell the home instead.
“When I talk to my family, they say, ‘What you will do?’ I say only one thing I don't want to happen to me — deportation,” he said. “If they want me to go back today, I will go.”
Dorval said being deported can be stigmatizing: Some believe it happens only to criminals. If he were deported, he’d lose the ability to apply for a visa to return to the United States.
It’s not certain how many Haitians have left, though with the deadline months away, the number may still be small. Local school officials say about as many new immigrant children have begun attending school as have left the district.
Still, some Haitians, fearing that Trump’s campaign rhetoric put Charleroi in the crosshairs, have already moved elsewhere in the Mon Valley. Others have traveled much farther.
Samuel, for one, told the congregation the day before Trump was inaugurated that he was leaving the state to live with a relative, working remotely and staying indoors in hopes of avoiding deportation.
“He got up and said how much he loved the church and how much he loved everybody, but unfortunately, he was uncomfortable with the situation with Trump,” recalled Ord, the pastor.
Ord said one woman in the congregation, who has a Trump sign in her yard, asked why Samuel was so afraid: Trump would deport only criminals, she said.
This view of Trump’s intentions is common among native-born residents, Ord said. Even though Samuel has permission to be in the country for now, “They're not just going after illegals,” Ord said. “They're going after all of them.”
‘Like throwing darts at a balloon in the dark’
Without Charleroi’s immigrants, the Pittsburgh region likely would have been the only large metro area in the country to lose population in the most recent U.S. Census estimates, according to Chris Briem, a University of Pittsburgh economist. Their departure could make things difficult for local employers, he said.
“A lot of employers will not find some easy, quick or any replacement for those workers,” he said. “They will, if they stay open, be forced to raise [wages] to a point where a lot of them are probably not competitive.”
The day after Noem’s announcement, Fourth Street Foods CEO Chris Scott said the company was trying to figure out how to respond.
In October the company said it employed around 1,000 people — including about 700 immigrants — at its food packaging plants. A majority of those immigrants were Haitian.
But Scott declined to give an interview this month about how the company would respond, citing divisions in the community.
“We have temporary and full-time employees who are nervous about their immigration status, even though they’ve done everything they were supposed to do,” Scott said in a text message. “Additional exposure specific to our company or our people is not something anyone needs.”
Dave Barbe, the owner of Fourth Street Foods Inc., told WESA in October that he had been threatened by local residents. In a defamation lawsuit filed against a local resident, Barbe said he’d received 300 threatening calls, including some that threatened to burn down company facilities and accused him of being “a traitor” who imports “slave labor from Haiti.”
The Charleroi Area School District isn’t sure yet how to budget for the next school year, given that many of its more than 130 English-language learners could be gone. Superintendent Ed Zelich said the district would likely have to furlough most of its English language-learner teachers, and potentially some of the first- and second-grade teachers who would have been teaching Haitian children.
“It's almost like throwing darts at a balloon in the dark,” Zelich said of the budgeting challenge. “But we're trying to have plan A and plan B as we move forward.”
Zelich said the district has tried to focus on educating students and stay out of controversies. It hasn’t always succeeded.
In December the school district sought to quell a rumor that one of its students had been infected with tuberculosis. But then in January one of its students was diagnosed with the disease. The student was not contagious, according to state health officials, and there does not appear to have been an outbreak of the disease since. But some parents believed that the district had not been truthful in December.
“There's a lot of anxiety,” Zelich said. “My job is to lead people and keep them calm and try to predict the future as well as live in the present.”
According to Ord, the Methodist pastor, after Trump called out Charleroi’s Haitian immigrants in September, people in town have become emboldened to speak out against them, too. Ord said people will come up to him and try to get him to agree that they’ve been a problem.
Ord’s wife, Mary, said a neighbor once accosted her while she was walking the dog.
“He said I was the reason the immigrants were in Charleroi because I give them free things,” she said.
For the past three years Mary has led an effort to collect donations for immigrants. She heard that many Haitians arrived without warm clothes, bedding or basic cooking supplies — and she began handing out donations in a program she calls “Ezekiel’s Closet.” She’s skeptical the program has drawn many immigrants.
“I really don't think an old spoon and some old leggings are going to do the trick,” she said.
There was a relatively brisk business at the church’s most recent Thursday-morning giveaway, as both newcomers and more established residents picked up necessities. One Haitian woman, who had arrived two months ago, came to pick up cutlery, towels and some “international peacekeeper” action figures for her children.
While the atmosphere seemed relatively light, Mary said the giveaways used to be filled with laughter and joy. She says she’s felt discouraged that fewer people had shown up recently, as worries about the future have left everyone uncertain.
“People are somber,” she said. “It's changed the whole mood.”
‘We want to get everybody out of Trump's crosshairs’
That mood, like much else that Haitians have brought with them, has found its way into local houses of worship. Which is why the pews were packed on a chilly Sunday morning after CityReach Church’s early-morning Haitian service in Creole.
The congregation was listening to Joseph Patrick Murphy, a Pittsburgh immigration lawyer who has been coming to Charleroi every week for years.
“This town is very supportive of your presence, in spite of every once in a while we'll run into some weirdo,” Murphy assured them. He paused for what he said to be translated before continuing: “Trump doesn't run Charleroi. We do.”
Murphy told the crowd that under Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities were targeting three kinds of immigrants: those with criminal records, those with deportation orders and those with no status at all. Local Haitians didn’t fall into those categories, he said, which is why “we don't have ICE trucks going up and down the street.”
But some of the Haitians wanted to know if they should apply for asylum — a status given to those who face political or other persecution in their home countries — before their TPS status expires.
Being granted asylum can lead to a green card and eventually citizenship. And Murphy holds impromptu office hours in a nearby McDonald’s restaurant and sometimes meets clients in his car when they don’t feel comfortable speaking in public.
“We'll get it done because we want to get everybody out of Trump's crosshairs,” he told the audience.
But Murphy can’t work for free — “It's not pro-bono. It's low-bono,” he told WESA — and asylum is rarely granted to immigrants who apply more than a year after they arrive. It can also take years to obtain.
Anslo Ladouceur, who was translating for Murphy at CityReach, applied for asylum in 2020 after his father, a church pastor, was gunned down in the street. (“If I wasn't there, they wouldn’t even have taken the body,” he said. “I think they would have just left it in the street.”) He is still waiting for a decision.
Ladouceur says he understood some of the impulses driving Trump voters, including their support for the Laken Riley Act, named after a woman killed by an immigrant.
“I know what does that mean, losing someone,” he said. And he says he’s envious of Americans for having a president with Trump’s values: “He said America first. I would love to have a president like that in my country.”
But Ladouceur holds degrees in both law and philosophy, and he views the issue through both lenses.
“For years, Haiti has been a good friend of the United States,” he said. “When you have a friend, when you are in need, that person was there for you. And when that person is in need, would you turn your face?”
‘You can't even have a conversation’
Not everyone sees the imminent departure of Haitians as a problem, as a look at the town’s Facebook page suggests. In response to pictures of a car that crashed into an electrical pole this week, for example, one commenter said, “Demolition derby, Haitian style.” Another added, “No speak English.”
Nikki Sheppick is among the page’s most prolific posters.
“I don’t hate ’em,” Sheppick said of the immigrants. “If they're legal and they have no ill intent toward Americans, I don't have a problem with it.”
But Sheppick objected to Biden’s admission of Haitians: “All of a sudden somebody signs an executive order and says, ‘Boom, just let in multimillions.’ That is not the way this is supposed to be done.” And she said she was wary of immigrants who “are not here legally and we don't know what their intentions are.”
Many residents don’t agree that immigration has revitalized the economy, according to Republican borough councilman Larry Celaschi.
“They've not had an impact … to where I can see that we are thriving because of the immigrant community,” Celaschi said.
While he acknowledged that a half-dozen or so businesses have opened to serve the new arrivals, he said their products and services largely target immigrants.
Celaschi said that only a few of the “American businesses,” such as the Dollar General and a local gas station, have been helped by the new arrivals.
“What about the business owners that are not benefiting from the influx of the immigrants?” he asked.
Celaschi said he believes that the state and federal government should have done more to help the town adapt to what some estimate to be about a 50% increase in population in just a couple of years. In his view, state and federal officials should have provided additional resources to pay for more emergency-service workers, police and code-enforcement officers.
“We didn't ask for this,” he said. “If we were to get support from the beginning to help us adapt to this change, things could have been different.”
Celaschi has heard many of the arguments in favor of the immigrants, and he has responses — often based on anecdotal evidence — for many of them. Asked whether the Haitians’ arrival has prompted a rise in home values, he said his aunt’s house recently sold for a low price. Asked how the Haitians’ departure would affect local churches, he pointed to two churches in nearby Rostraver that were doing fine without any Haitians.
Even the growth in production at Fourth Street Barbecue, the area’s largest employer, does little to help Charleroi’s bottom line, Celaschi said: Its plants are located in the neighboring boroughs of North Charleroi and Speers, which reap the tax benefits.
Celaschi said he isn’t opposed to all immigrants. “If the immigrants are legal, they have every right to be here.”
But Celaschi said isn’t sure how many immigrants are here legally, pointing to a recent federal indictment that charged a staffing agency with providing Fourth Street Barbecue with immigrant workers who were here illegally. The owner of the agency has pleaded guilty to falsifying paperwork and not paying taxes. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June.
According to other local officials, as well as immigration lawyers and Haitians themselves, the vast majority of Haitians in town have the legal status they need to work. But Celaschi said that when that status changes this summer, “I'm going to stand by our President of the United States.”
And like some residents, Celaschi doesn’t think the immigrants have done enough to adapt to life in America. Although he’s heard of Haitians attending English classes in town, he said, he doesn’t hear them speaking English.
One fall afternoon while he was painting his house, he said, “I did not hear one word of the English language at all on my street that day.
“Wrap your head around that,” he added. “I don't want to say it was disturbing. It was very puzzling, how this could happen when all the neighbors were speaking the same language forever here — and now all of a sudden, boom, you can't even have a conversation outside of waving your hands and saying hello.”
‘I would like to tell them to have love in their heart’
Others will feel the departure of the Haitians more deeply.
The Rev. Sharon Woomer and her husband were co-pastors at Presbyterian churches in Charleroi and Monongahela until three years ago, when Woomer decided to dedicate herself full-time to the Presbyterian Church of Charleroi. The congregation had only about 15 elderly members — but the need among the immigrants was great.
“To me, the whole opportunity, the whole truth of the gospel is to be able to realize that we're the same and to welcome the stranger,” she said.
One way Woomer has tried to do so is by using her church as a space for English classes. Although she had no experience teaching English, Woomer herself taught the advanced classes. And it was during those conversations that she got to know the Haitians in a way that many others have not.
Often, she said, conversations in class “would end in tears because people are remembering their mom, who's seriously ill, that they can't get home and see, or children that they left behind with good planning with relatives and then something happens to that child.”
And much like many Charleroi residents found the arrival of the Haitians perplexing, she said, Haitians often found it a challenge to adjust to life in Charleroi.
“There's no guidebook when you get here,” she said. “You have to figure everything out yourself: how to get a checkbook, how to open a bank account.”
Her students also told her about some local Facebook pages where Haitians were insulted and attacked — attacks that grew harsher after Trump called out the town.
“Based on their [Facebook] comments, they really hate us,” one of those students, who asked to be called Marie, said of long-time residents. “I would like to tell them to have love in their heart instead of hate because we all are human.”
Marie said that the immigrants’ efforts to adapt — all made while working full-time — often go unrecognized.
“They say that we don't speak English,” she said. “But we are trying. We are doing our best.”
Longtime residents “want to preserve their town. … They think we wanna take over the town,” she said. “If they really want to know what we are doing, most of the Haitians, they go to work, they go to church, and that's it.”
Maria herself works at Bakery Barn, a local company that makes protein bars, where she helps translate for her colleagues. It’s a step down from her white-collar job in Haiti, but a step up from her previous job in Fourth Street Barbecue’s refrigerated warehouses.
Marie was able to make friends at a women’s group in a local Catholic Church, St. Andrew the Apostle. She helped convince the church to bring in a Haitian priest, and she translates for a weekly trauma-support group that helps immigrants deal with the separation from their home — and to recover from sometimes-violent pasts.
Marie’s own mother died in February, and she couldn’t leave the country for the funeral. But she said that despite the hardships of living outside Haiti, she hopes that before she loses her status in the U.S. she can get permission to live with her brother in Canada. That way, her 23-year-old daughter can continue to pursue her dream of becoming a dental hygienist — a job she currently holds in Charleroi.
“We would like to go back” to Haiti, she said, but gang violence is daunting “when you have your daughter who is really scared when she knows that they can rape her.
“It's very sad for us and it hurts,” Marie said. “So we keep praying that God can change the President's decision.”
