Why Are Haitians Living In Alabama Making Residents So Upset?

by Sharelle Burt

September 5, 2024

Shouldn’t everyone be welcomed?

A group of Haitians living in the small town of Albertville, Alabama, have anti-immigration residents up in arms, AL reports. 

As immigrants from the nation of Haiti came to town to work at a nearby chicken processing plant, a group of “concerned” citizens started a Facebook group to express their grievances online. Members of “Concerned About Albertville” openly highlighted why they are against Haitian immigrants living in Albertville, making racist and offensive remarks. “If they are coming from Hati (sic) … THEY ARE GANG members and the ones they put out of the prisons,” one now-deleted comment mentioned. 

“WHO KNOWS they are letting anyone come, could be the worst of the worst. They act like it.”

Similar sentiments were shared during an in-person public hearing on Aug. 13. One woman expressed concern about mass migration and suggested stopping it. “The issue today is the mass migration coming here and what we’re gonna do about it,” a woman said. “We have to cut off the housing, and that’s gonna be number one.”

As others agreed, another participant went a step further to say citizens of the Caribbean island have a certain smell to them. “I’m gonna tell you something else. I’ve been to Haiti. It’s got a smell to it. These people have smells to them. … These people are not like us. They don’t assimilate,” one man said. 

“They are not here to assimilate. They’re not here to be Americanized. They are not here to learn Alabama history, and they don’t care about our schools.”

For months, Haiti has been riddled with violence and political unrest. In March 2024, Haitian gangs launched massive attacks on at least three police stations in the capital city of Port-Au-Prince and carried them out the next day. President Joe Biden enlisted the United States’ help, announcing an 18-month extension for the temporary protection status for more than 300,000 unauthorized Haitian migrants. 

Unique Dunston, the founder of Reclaiming Our Time, who has been fighting to remove the Confederate flag for years, says he isn’t surprised by the pushback. “We saw the same pushback when the Hispanic community started coming in,” Dunston said. 

“Now we’re seeing that resurface with the Haitian community.”

However, not everyone is willing to turn the other cheek. During a second public hearing on Aug. 26, residents and some immigrants came together to try to ease tension between the groups. 

Hosted at the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, according to Sand Mountain Reporter, Pastor David McMillen came together with Haitian Pastor Dukinson Merilien to help navigate the conversation of concerned residents, who formed the group as “Concerned About Alabama.” “If I were to ask us here today in a contemporary audience who is our neighbor? We would have to say, everybody, not just the person living on either side of us but every person in the world who crosses the streets of Albertville, Alabama, or Marshall County or the state of Alabama as a whole, folks, that’s our neighbor,” McMillen said. 

“Friends, this is not a white community, this is not a Hispanic community, this is not a Haitian community, this is a community of neighbors. It’s our community, so we need to see what we can do to help make each other’s circumstances and situations be better than what they are.”

Once a town with a 98% white population, Albertville is now home to close to 13% foreign-born residents as immigrants have made a home to work jobs at chicken plants.