Haitian pastor from York, Pa. detained by ICE
Coordination with local law enforcement has helped ICE rapidly expand its detention and deportation efforts.
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Jordan Wilkie/WITF
Omara Nunez, wife of detained Haitian immigrant and pastor Molis Augustave, cries during a rally calling for her husband’s release in York, Pa., on September 14, 2026.
Immigrant rights activists and some local religious leaders are calling on federal immigration officials to release a Haitian immigrant and York pastor who was detained after a traffic stop earlier this month.
West Manchester Township police stopped Molise Augustave for having a headlight out on Sept. 4. The police officers called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which then sent officers to detain Augustave.
Sent to an ICE facility in Louisiana, Augustave leaves behind a U.S. citizen wife and their two children, ages 9 and 2. Her older child hopes Augustave will come home soon, but the 2-year-old is too young to understand.
“He waits by the door saying daddy, a lot,” said Omara Nunez, Augustave’s wife.
She joined a news conference Tuesday at the York office of We Are CASA, an immigrant rights nonprofit. Backed by a crowd of over two dozen supporters including state Sen. Patty Kim (D-Dauphin), two pastors, and several local activist leaders, Nunez asked ICE to release her husband and allow him to return home to his family.
In response to an inquiry from WITF, an unidentified ICE spokesperson wrote an email stating, “He will remain in ICE custody pending removal.”
Advocates at Monday’s news conference chanted, “Bring Molise home,” after each speaker, including Olga Galati, deputy director of We Are CASA Pennsylvania.
“He is detained in Louisiana hundreds of miles away from his wife, children, his congregation, and the community he helped to build,” Galati said.
She and advocates who spoke at Monday’s news conference called for the Trump administration to reinstate TPS, and said the country is unsafe, as described in the State Department’s travel advisory against going to Haiti due to gang violence.
Augustave has no criminal record in Pennsylvania. A person with the same name has one citation in early January 2025 for driving without a license. No citation has been submitted yet in the state court system for the Sept. 4 traffic stop.
ICE provided conflicting legal information compared to that shared by Augustave’s advocates. ICE said Augustave came into the country illegally in 2016.
Ama Frimpong, lawyer for We Are CASA who is also coordinating legal respond on behalf of Augustave, said Augustave has done everything the right way. According to her, Augustave came to the U.S. at a legal port of entry in 2016 and sought asylum and TPS protection.
Jordan Wilkie / WITF News
Olga Galati (center), deputy director for We Are CASA Pennsylvania, stands with Omara Nunez (left of podium), the wife of detained Haitian immigrant Molis Augustave, along with over two dozen supporters in We Are CASA’s York, Pa., office on September 14, 2026.
In 2018, an immigration judge rejected Augustave’s asylum claim and issued an order of removal, according to ICE. Augustave was not detained or removed due to the TPS protections.
In Nov. 2025, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem decided that Haiti no longer met the conditions for protections for deportation. After a series of legal battles, the U.S. Supreme Court in June gave DHS the authority to withdraw protection, which was formally done on July 27.
There are an estimated 15,000-20,000 Haitians living in Pennsylvania.
Local police coordinate with ICE
Augustave was detained on a Saturday evening, when he was out driving for a food delivery app, doing what he could to find work. His normal work, including for We Are CASA, ended with the revocation of Haitian’s protected status under TPS.
After officers pulled Augustave over, they contacted ICE, according to West Manchester Township Police Chief John Snyder.
“It was determined that he was wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a final order of removal,” Snyder wrote in an email to WITF. “An agent from ICE arrived on [sic] the traffic stop and took Molis into custody. He was transported by the ICE personnel.”
Per DHS 287(g) website, West Manchester Township Police Department entered into a 287(g) Task Force Model agreement with DHS on July 26, 2026. That agreement allows local law enforcement to “enforce limited immigration authority while performing police duties,” according to the DHS website.
His agency joined the DHS agreement after a “series of meetings with ICE officials who presented the program,” then after “careful review and consideration” Snyder proposed the program to township officials who signed off. He said the agreement helps strengthen coordination between his department and federal immigration authorities, offers training to officers, and brings in money from the federal government for helping with immigration enforcement.
Snyder said his police department has long worked with ICE and that his officers “would have handed the subject over regardless of the [287(g)] agreement or not.”
Advocates at the rally said local agencies like the West Manchester Township Police Department are force multipliers for ICE, and that their participation increases the number of immigration detentions and deportations. Michelle Hines of Solidarity Lancaster presented her own analysis of deportation data showing most detentions in York County come from local law enforcement.
In its email to WITF, ICE boasted of the impacts brought by local law enforcement partnerships.
“Partnerships with law enforcement are critical to having the resources we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country,” the unidentified spokesperson wrote, and that the agency now has 2,506 287(g) partnerships, up from 135 when Trump started his second term.
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