By Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post

Jeff Jn Charles had, for months, been ner­vous about leav­ing the house. He feared that he’d be sent back to Haiti if some­one dis­cov­ered he had no iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. But one day this month, he sat in the Eglise Bap­tiste Du Cal­vaire, a Hait­ian church in Adel­phi, proudly hold­ing up his new Mary­land iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card.

“I have an ID,” he said, smil­ing. “Now, I can say, ‘I’m Jeff.’ ”

Jn Charles, 25, is one of 35,005 Haitians who have received tem­po­rary pro­tected sta­tus (TPS) since the Jan. 12 earth­quake in their home­land. The pro­gram allows those who can prove they have lived con­tin­u­ously in the United States since that date to remain in the coun­try legally for 18 months, regard­less of their sta­tus when they applied.

On Mon­day, U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices plans to announce that it will extend the July 20 reg­is­tra­tion dead­line to Jan. 18. About 70,000 to 100,000 Haitians are eli­gi­ble; as of Fri­day, 55,786 had applied. Most live in Florida and New York. As of June, 1,407 peo­ple in the Wash­ing­ton area had applied.

“The reg­is­tra­tion pace has been slower than expected,” said Ale­jan­dro May­orkas, direc­tor of the immi­gra­tion service.

Bar­ri­ers include the dif­fi­culty of obtain­ing nec­es­sary doc­u­ments from Haiti, the $470 appli­ca­tion fee and a fear that sign­ing up could lead to depor­ta­tion. Those apply­ing for TPS tend to be in the United States ille­gally or on visas that are set to expire.

The pro­gram is not a path to cit­i­zen­ship or per­ma­nent res­i­dency, but it offers peo­ple like Jn Charles a way to work and live in the coun­try with­out fear of deportation.

In Port-au-Prince, Jn Charles was a busi­ness stu­dent. He arrived in the United States last year on a med­ical visa to seek treat­ment for an eye injury. The visa expired in Novem­ber, but he stayed in his uncle’s Sil­ver Spring home to con­tinue treat­ment. He was, Jn Charles said, afraid all the time.

“Liv­ing with­out papers is very dif­fi­cult, very stress­ful,” he said. “I couldn’t go out, I couldn’t even drive, I couldn’t even have an ID, I couldn’t safely walk on the street. If there’s a police offi­cer who might ask me for my papers, you were afraid. And you don’t want to con­front the sit­u­a­tion.” Jn Charles didn’t dare look for work.

On Jan. 12, the life he had left behind in Haiti col­lapsed in crushed con­crete and steel. Like many Haitians in the United States, he waited anx­iously for news. When the dust cleared he learned that his school, his church, and many of his friends and fam­ily mem­bers had dis­ap­peared under the rubble.

After the earth­quake, Haitians who were already in the United States became eli­gi­ble for TPS, mak­ing Haiti the first coun­try to become eli­gi­ble since Sudan in 2004.

USCIS and com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions held infor­ma­tion ses­sions, helped peo­ple apply for fee waivers and warned them about scam­mers offer­ing “help” fill­ing out the forms. May­orkas said that 92 per­cent of fee-waiver appli­ca­tions are being granted and that TPS “should be a source of com­fort rather than a source of fear.”

Still, at the Caribbean Help Cen­ter in Sil­ver Spring, only about half of eli­gi­ble Haitians have applied, the Rev. Evans Faustin said. Besides balk­ing at the fees, he said, “they’re afraid it’s going to end. They’re afraid it’s a way for [immi­gra­tion author­i­ties] to get their name and information.”

Faustin said he has tried to con­vince them oth­er­wise: “It’s a really good thing; I firmly believe so. That’s why I encour­age all the peo­ple, ‘You never know, so go ahead, take the chance.’ I have seen so many lives change, espe­cially for young people.”

Faustin said one woman had been in the United States ille­gally for 10 or 15 years and was in depor­ta­tion pro­ceed­ings when she applied and got a work permit.

“Now she’s work­ing,” he said. “She has a Social Secu­rity num­ber, which she wanted for so long.”

The sta­tus could extend for years if pre­vi­ous dis­as­ters are any indi­ca­tion. Nicaraguans, Sal­vado­rans and Hon­durans, who received TPS after nat­ural dis­as­ters dat­ing as far back as 1999, con­tinue to have theirs extended, and an 18-month exten­sion for Sal­vado­rans was announced Friday.

Each exten­sion requires a new appli­ca­tion from TPS holders.

The Rev. Jean St. Ulme, pas­tor at Eglise Bap­tiste Du Cal­vaire and Jn Charles’s uncle, said Haiti remains in such dis­ar­ray that it is unlikely to be able to accept repa­tri­a­tion of its nation­als any­time soon.

“Def­i­nitely it should be extended, because Haiti will not be good even 10 years from now,” he said. “So there’s no way they can give it now and then next year say, ‘You have to go back to your country.’ ”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/11/AR2010071103739.html