Rev. Josh Gill of Central Presbyterian Church in Downingtown joined several other local clergy on Sept. 22, 2026 at the York offices of immigration advocacy group We Are CASA to decry immigration enforcement tactics under President Donald Trump. The immigrant Gill was advocating for, Molis Augustave, was deported on Sept. 24.
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Rev. Josh Gill of Central Presbyterian Church in Downingtown joined several other local clergy on Sept. 22, 2026 at the York offices of immigration advocacy group We Are CASA to decry immigration enforcement tactics under President Donald Trump. The immigrant Gill was advocating for, Molis Augustave, was deported on Sept. 24.
Correction: Advocacy group We Are CASA updated a previous statement to correct the remaining legal options for Molis Augustave. If their legal motion is granted, the group can then ask the federal government to bring Augustave back to the U.S., but the government is not required to do so.
The Department of Homeland Security is making weekly deportation flights from Louisiana to Haiti. After receiving a reprieve last week, York pastor Molis Augustave was flown out of the country Thursday, according to a community group organizing on his behalf.
Even with an additional week, Augustave was deported 20 days after he was detained. Compared to past administrations, including during President Donald Trump’s first term, that’s a fast turn-around and is part of this administration’s aggressive deportation campaign.
Augustave left a U.S. citizen wife, a 2-year-old son, and a 9-year-old stepdaughter in York. His congregation at Iglesia de Dios La Voz de Alerta is now left without one of their key religious leaders. Augustave has no criminal record and spent six years in Pennsylvania after coming to the U.S. legally in 2016, according to immigration documents shared with WITF.
“This is what happens when a government decides that due process is a privilege it can revoke at will,” said Ama Frimpong, Chief of Services and Legal Advocacy at We Are CASA.
She and other staff at We Are CASA have repeatedly said Augustave’s case was rushed to undermine a legitimate claim to stay in the country and become a lawful permanent resident.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, did not respond to questions about the speed with which Augustave’s case was adjudicated. In prior statements, an unidentified DHS spokesperson said Augustave entered the country illegally and that he would not be released pending removal.
West Manchester police stopped Augustave for a broken headlight after 10 p.m. on Sept. 4, according to Chief John Snyder. The officer checked Augustave’s immigration status, then called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which was there within minutes to pick him up, Snyder said.
On Sept. 17, Augustave was on a plane set for Haiti. But before it took off, Augustave was pulled off that flight. We Are CASA staff credited that stay of deportation to political intervention by Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman, Democrats, along with Sen. Dave McCormick and U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, Republicans.
Over the next two business days, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reviewed and rejected Augustave’s application for permanent residency, which had been pending since March. The typical wait time for applications processed at the Philadelphia office, where Augustave filed, is 15 months, according to the agency’s website.
Then on Thursday, with several legal filings pending but none that required the government to keep Augustave on U.S. soil, he was flown to Haiti.
Flights are currently going to Cap-Haïtien, a city in northern Haiti, because gang violence and control has made entry to the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, too dangerous. More than 1.5 million Haitians are internally displaced due to the violence. Most of the country is food insecure and 1.8 million Haitians are at emergency levels of hunger, according to the World Food Programme.
Upon landing, Augustave received support from the nonprofit immigrant rights group Haitian Bridge Alliance, according to We Are CASA staff. The two groups have been closely coordinating around Augustave’s case.
“Pastor Molis… is a Haitian Christian who built a life in America, who is married to an American citizen, who raised American children, who pastored an American and Haitian congregation,” said Guerline Jozef, who leads the Haitian Bridge Alliance. “And this administration put him on a plane like he was nothing. This is cruel and inhumane.”
Augustave’s Christian faith has been a central point in the public campaign to keep him in the U.S. We Are CASA staff called on Trump as a man of God to follow the parts of Christianity that teach generosity and to keep Augustave in the country.
Pennsylvania’s politicians did not answer questions about why they decided to intervene in this case. Smucker’s office said federal privacy rules prevented the congressman from discussing specifics of the case. None of the elected officials responded to requests for statements about Augustave’s deportation.
Despite his deportation, Augustave’s legal battle continues. There’s a motion to reopen his case pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals. If granted, We Are CASA could then petition the U.S. government to bring Augustave back in the country, according to Frimpong, who is coordinating the pastor’s legal team. Frimpong previously said that deporting Augustave would make it much more difficult to ever bring him back to his family.
Trump remade the BIA early in his second administration, firing all judges appointed under President Joe Biden. Unlike other types of judges, immigration judges serve under the Department of Justice and are not independent actors.
Under Trump’s second administration, USCIS, which reviews visa applications and petitions to become a permanent resident, has also restricted entry to the country and limited green card approvals.
While Augustave was held in a Louisiana detention center, waiting to see if political pressure or legal battles would win his release back to York, he wrote an op-ed, published on the liberal media site Daily Kos.
“I now understand something I did not understand before I was detained: For every person whose name becomes known, there are so many others whose names we never hear,” Augustave wrote.
Before the Trump administration removed protections from deportation for Haitians living in the U.S. back in July, an act approved by the U.S. Supreme Court, Augustave worked for We Are CASA. He first met Jozef and the Haitian Bridge Alliance ten years ago. Those connections generated support that very few detained immigrants ever receive.
Most detained immigrants don’t have lawyers, and they are not provided by the government like in criminal cases. The vast majority of detained immigrants without lawyers lose their cases and are deported. In Trump’s second administration, so are the well-connected.
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