A Haitian pastor who built a life, family and church community in Pennsylvania has been deported to Haiti, less than three weeks after a traffic stop led to his detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Molis Augustave, a pastor from York, Pennsylvania, was deported on Thursday, September 24, after supporters, faith leaders, immigration advocates and several Pennsylvania elected officials had pushed to keep him in the United States.
Augustave leaves behind his U.S.-citizen wife, Omara Nunez, their 2-year-old son and his 9-year-old stepdaughter. His congregation, Iglesia de Dios La Voz de Alerta, is also now without one of its religious leaders.
A Traffic Stop Led to His ICE Detention
Augustave’s case changed quickly after a traffic stop on September 4.
West Manchester Township police stopped him after 10 p.m. for a broken headlight. According to the township’s police chief, an officer checked Augustave’s immigration status and discovered that he had a final order of removal. ICE was contacted and arrived within minutes to take him into custody.
Augustave was later transferred to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana.
His immigration history, however, goes back about a decade.
According to immigration documents reviewed by WITF, Augustave entered the United States through a port of entry in 2016 and was paroled into the country by the Department of Homeland Security. He later applied for asylum, but an immigration judge denied the claim and issued a removal order in 2018.
For years, Temporary Protected Status for Haitians prevented his removal from the United States. That protection ended in July 2026 after a series of legal and administrative developments.
First Deportation Flight Stopped at the Last Minute
Augustave was initially scheduled to be deported on September 17.
According to We Are CASA, an immigration advocacy organization working on his case, Augustave had already been placed aboard a plane headed for Haiti when he was taken off the flight before it departed.
Advocates credited intervention from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Dave McCormick, and U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker with helping delay the deportation. WITF reported that Smucker’s office said federal privacy rules prevented it from discussing the specifics of Augustave’s case, while the other officials did not respond to its questions about their intervention.
The delay gave Augustave and his attorneys additional time, but it did not ultimately stop his removal.
Green Card Application Denied Days Before Deportation
Augustave had applied for permanent residency through his marriage to his U.S.-citizen wife.
According to WITF, the application had been pending since March. After his first deportation was stopped, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reviewed and denied the application within two business days.
His legal team continued filing motions, but none required the federal government to keep him in the United States while those proceedings continued.
On September 24 — 20 days after the traffic stop that led to his detention — Augustave was deported to Haiti.
Current U.S. deportation flights to Haiti have been arriving in Cap-Haïtien rather than Port-au-Prince because of the security situation in the capital. Augustave received assistance from the Haitian Bridge Alliance after arriving in Haiti, according to WITF.
Wife and Children Remain in Pennsylvania
Back in Pennsylvania, Augustave’s wife and children are now facing life without him at home.
Before his deportation, Nunez publicly called for her husband to be released and returned to his family. During an earlier rally, she described how their young son continued waiting for his father to come home.
Augustave’s case received support from immigration organizations, members of the clergy and elected officials from both major political parties.
Advocates argued that he should have been allowed to remain in the country while his legal options were considered. Federal immigration authorities maintained that Augustave had a final removal order and would remain in custody pending removal.
His Legal Case Is Not Necessarily Over
Although Augustave is now in Haiti, his attorneys are still pursuing a legal effort that could affect his immigration case.
WITF reported that a motion to reopen his case remains pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals. If that motion is granted, his attorneys could ask the federal government to allow him to return to the United States. However, the government would not automatically be required to bring him back simply because the case was reopened.
For now, Augustave remains separated from the family and church community he left behind in Pennsylvania.
His case also shows how quickly a person’s immigration situation can change after the loss of a temporary protection from deportation — in Augustave’s case, going from a traffic stop to removal from the United States in just 20 days.
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