This story was first published by WBUR on October 21, 2024. Listen to it here.

Or read it in Haitian Kreyól at our affiliated news site, BostonHaitian.com.

Frantz Edouard was safe with relatives in the United States. But he couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep.

Days had passed without word from his wife, Heroína. She and their two young daughters were on their way to join him. But all Edouard knew for sure was they were somewhere in the jungles of Panama.

Edouard had already made that long trek, ultimately crossing the border from Mexico and boarding a bus for Indiana. Far from his native Haiti — and even farther from Brazil, where the family had spent the last decade — he waited to hear from Heroína. He couldn’t shake the images of death and violence he’d seen along the path his family was now on.

“Life is not easy for Haitians,” Edouard said. “So many years of struggling. We are still struggling. It seems that only stops when you die.”

Amid the gang violence and lawlessness consuming Haiti — and American politicians casting a spotlight on the flow of migrants from the island nation — WBUR set out to learn how the latest newcomers to Massachusetts are faring in a state that’s now asking them not to come. As the Edouards were trying to start over, pressure was mounting to shut the door on migrants in a state that had long promised shelter to families with children.

‘You have to run away from that country’

Frantz Edouard’s story is not uncommon among the thousands of Haitians coming to Massachusetts. His search for safe harbor started long ago.

He fled Haiti as a teenager amid the turmoil of the 1990s, following the first coup against then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Edouard remembers when the violence arrived at his family’s door: “First they killed my father, then they killed my brother-in-law."

He left for the neighboring Dominican Republic, on the eastern side of the island it shares with Haiti. There, he joined a Haitian community, where he met Heroína Santo Bueno, the daughter of leaders in an evangelical church. Her dad was Haitian, her mom Dominican.

After a years-long courtship, Frantz and Heroína tied the knot and had their first two children, a boy and a girl. But they say they faced discrimination in the DR and Frantz could never get work papers.

Returning to Haiti wasn’t an option, he said. “You have to run away from that country. We can't go back there if there's no government, if there's no security there.”

So they moved to Florianópolis in the south of Brazil. They felt welcome in a country that would become home to as many as 200,000 Haitians over the coming years. Frantz and Heroína worked in textile factories, restaurants and bakeries, among other jobs. Heroína gave birth to another daughter.

We can't go back there if there's no government, if there's no security there."
Frantz Edouard

Still, after nearly 10 years, Frantz said, they couldn’t earn enough to get ahead.

You work, you pay for your housing and food, but you can't help your family back in Haiti, and you can’t prepare a future for your children,” he said. “So I spoke with my wife: ‘Let’s hit the road like everyone else.’”

That was in 2022, amid an influx of Haitians to the United States that continues today. Border officials encountered 54,000 Haitians trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico that year — up from just 4,400 two years earlier — and the number could reach 90,000 this year.

Leaving Brazil

Frantz and Heroína are in their mid-40s. He is pensive and quiet, but lights up when he looks at his kids. Heroína laughs easily and often, and she's quick to offer a story. But her smile fades when she recalls all it took to get here.

Frantz mapped out a path familiar to many migrants seeking refuge in the United States. From southern Brazil, they could travel up through Central America and into Mexico, then apply for asylum and be released into the U.S.

As Frantz prepared to leave, Heroína didn’t feel safe making the trip with their whole family. She’d heard of the horrors Haitians were facing as they traversed the Darién Gap, the roadless jungle separating South and Central America. “There were many rapes happening," she said, "people getting killed. I told him I’m not going to take my children through that."

“There were many rapes happening," she said, "people getting killed. I told him I’m not going to take my children through that."

So Frantz set out by himself, trekking northward with companions he met along the way. After finally reaching Indiana, he could only hope his wife and daughters would follow. He said some families break down when couples migrate separately.

“The family falls apart,” he said. “And your family is the most important thing.”

Haitian families come to the U.S. in a number of ways. Some apply for asylum at the border, while others with relatives to sponsor their immigration appeals take flights to America. Local activists say some are here under the radar, evading attention from immigration authorities.

Marline Amedee heads Haitian Community Partners, a nonprofit in Brockton, which she said is a top destination for the new arrivals. She said most people travel here after years in Brazil or Chile, spurred by political and economic forces to make another move across the continent.

“Everything that's happening right now, it's the consequences of the host country that they were in,” Amedee said. “That forced them to migrate.”

Amedee said it only makes sense that people come to the U.S. “This is the land of opportunity and the land of freedom,” she said. “So who doesn’t want to come here and find a better place … where they don't have any worries?”

At least that’s the hope.

Darién Gap

Eight months after Frantz left, Heroína was ready to make the trip. Word was migrants crossing the Darién Gap had become less of a target for attacks, as the hundreds of thousands traversing the land bridge gave rise to an informal economy to guide them through.

Heroína and her daughters, ages 6 and 18 at the time, set out on foot from the south of Brazil along with two other families — a group of 14 people. Heroína said their son, 22-year-old Emmanuel, was fearful of what the road might bring, and returned to family in the Dominican Republic.
Heroína said the walking felt like it would never end.

“Imagine,” she said, “people with three or four children, walking. Three months of walking.”

All they had to eat was instant soup, she said: “Often the adults didn't eat. We gave it to the children and we’d go without food.”

The challenges grew as they entered the jungle. They lost contact with Frantz, who could only imagine what his family was up against.

“Because I went through there first by myself,” he said, “I saw the river sweeping people away with their children. Thieves killing people. These things get recorded in your mind.”

Frantz was right to worry. Heroína said they slept in the mud, next to rivers that seemed calm when they lay down to rest. One night, they were nearly washed away in a storm.

“I heard someone shout, ‘Look, the river is rising.' ” she recalled. “If we hadn’t woken up, we wouldn't be here to tell this story.”

Their older daughter, Ana, suffers from anemia, and with the younger Fransheily on her back, Heroína said at points they could barely carry on.

"Ana was crying, and I couldn't stand it. I had to cry too. I said, 'Oh my God, what have I done? Why didn't I stay in Brazil?'"

Heroína said they ditched their backpacks to lighten the load and kept on trudging. Anna turned 19 in the jungle.

After nearly a week, the group made it out of the Darién and let Frantz know they were OK. Soon they reached Mexico, where another hurdle awaited.

The Biden administration was trying to slow the historic flow of migrants — not just Haitians and Latin Americans, but also people from Asia and Africa. Mexico had agreed to help restrict the numbers of people showing up at the U.S. border, leading to long waits for migrants attempting to enter.

It took five months before Heroína got the green-light to apply for asylum.

The call to Boston

After being apart for almost a year, the Edouards were back together again in Indiana.

Frantz said he had steady work there, but the family couldn’t access social services, like food assistance or help processing documents. So they prepared to make another move, heading next to Philadelphia where Heroína had family. There, Frantz faced the opposite problem: no work.

"That’s when we heard from a friend who said, 'You should try Boston. They can help your family there,'" he said. "So I talked to my wife, and we decided to come to Boston."

Why Massachusetts over anywhere else?

For the Edouards, a simple tip suggested they might improve their fortunes here. But larger policy forces were at play. Massachusetts has a unique statewide “right to shelter” law that promised help for unhoused families with kids. And emergency shelter came with meals, caseworkers to help navigate a new country, and often legal aid and English classes.

"That’s when we heard from a friend who said, 'You should try Boston. They can help your family there.'"
Frantz Edouard

In August of last year, the family boarded a bus and headed to Boston.

"Our friend had told us where we had to go, that there was a hospital where they would connect us with services," Heroína said.

That was Boston Medical Center, a busy hub in the city's South End where many migrants have sought shelter. Heroína said hospital workers gave the family a hot meal and then sent them to Logan Airport, where they found themselves among hundreds of newcomers.

Over the following months, many of the those families would camp in a foyer at the airport’s international terminal. The spot turned into an ad hoc shelter, with hundreds sleeping there on any given night. Gov. Maura Healey would later seek to shut it down. Robin Lubbock/WBUR photo

But that night, the Edouards were funneled into the Emergency Assistance Family Shelter system. In the early morning hours, buses coordinated by the state brought the Haitians to register with the Department of Transitional Assistance, then to shelters around the region. The family was placed in Stoughton, 20 miles south of Boston. They were the first migrant guests at a hotel that would become a dedicated shelter for more than 130 families.

Massachusetts gave the Edouards what they needed for now: food and a roof over their heads. But they were among thousands of families in need of resources, and the political climate was changing fast. A state long known for helping homeless families said it was running out of space, and politicians from both parties wanted to put the brakes on the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent. Some Republicans wanted to amend the shelter law to exclude migrants, while top Democrats tried to walk the line between humanitarianism and capping the shelter system.

Crowded into their hotel room, the Edouards set about learning English and finding work. But before long they would face the question many migrants ask in a new place: would this really be their final stop?

This is the first story in a three-part series. The next installments will publish in the coming weeks. This segment aired on October 21, 2024. The Reporter and WBUR share content through a media partnership. Read this story in Haitian Kreyol at BostonHaitian.com.