When a pest control technician knocked on Steeven Marcel’s Brooklyn apartment three months ago, he instinctively reached for the nearest window, preparing to flee.
A couple of days earlier, an email from immigration enforcement authorities had ordered him to self-deport by late April.
“I laid on the ground looking at the door with my heart beating and my hands and legs trembling,” he said. “I was suffocating because I thought it was ICE at the door because they have my address.”
Marcel is a professional dancer from Haiti who arrived in the United States in March 2023 under a Biden-era humanitarian parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, CHNV.
For a while, things looked promising. Marcel worked legally and began building a new life in New York. Last year, he toured many U.S. cities with renowned actor and singer Billy Porter, who had discovered his talent on social media. He performed in “Giselle” with the American Ballet Theatre, danced at Lincoln Center, and took the stage with Brooklyn Ballet’s “Nutcracker.” “New York finally offered me a stage and hope for stability,” Marcel said in Haitian Creole. “It felt like a turning point after years of uncertainty and running.”
Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, his administration terminated the CHNV program and began sending self-deportation notices to beneficiaries like Marcel. The program allowed over 500,000 of these nationals to live and work temporarily in the United States for two years.
For Marcel, the policy change marked another rupture in a life already defined by instability. After years of running from deportation in Germany following his asylum application denial, New York had finally offered Marcel a home, rebuilding a life after years of uncertainty abroad.
But since the Trump administration started its immigration enforcement efforts, he feels like all his dreams have been shattered.
“It’s like all traumas have resurfaced. I feel that I should no longer be here,” he said.
Marcel says he is now spending sleepless nights, listening for any sign of an ICE raid and constantly preparing exit strategies. A car backfiring, a loud knock or any unexpected noise jolts him awake.
“I’m terrified. I don’t sleep at night because the same things that happened in Germany are happening again where immigration had my home address and access,” he said. “I don’t know where to find help, and I don’t even know what to ask for. As an artist, as a professional dancer, I feel trapped in a cage.”
Also Read: ‘You Leave with Nothing’: Haitians Face Impossible Choice After Supreme Court Decision
Marcel arrived in New York chasing the dreams that first took root in his childhood. He was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and at age 10, he fell in love with ballet after watching a broadcast of “Giselle” on his family’s black and white TV set.
When he saw Duke Albrecht leaping across the stage, he told his parents he wanted to become a dancer like him. But dancing wasn’t accepted in his conservative home. Marcel also identifies as queer, and coming from a Jehovah’s Witness family made expressing his identity especially challenging. At the age of 23, he eventually earned a scholarship to study at the Conservatorio Nacional de Bellas Artes in the Dominican Republic.
“I had to make a choice, and I lost many friends along the way,” he said. And despite his family’s religious beliefs, his mother supported him by sending money to help him pursue his dreams.
Marcel went to the DR on a one-year tourist visa, but was never able to obtain a student visa due to bureaucratic hurdles. He remained in the country for the next five years. During that time, his ballet group became finalists on “Dominican’s Got Talent.”
On multiple occasions, he considered returning to Haiti, especially when his mother couldn’t send him any more money and he had little food and couldn’t afford his rent. But after considering the discrimination and threats he was victim of in Haiti as someone who identifies as queer, he decided that going back was not a good option.
After finishing his studies in 2020 at the age of 28, he stayed in the DR another two years, and then flew to Switzerland to get to Germany. There, he filed for asylum, citing multiple threats he had received in his home country because of his sexual orientation. He spent eight months in a refugee camp, which he described as having dire conditions.
“I was sent to a camp in the middle of cornfields and farms. There were many sick people. It was like a cemetery,” he said.
Marcel spent a month in the first camp and recounts being interviewed for nine hours about his case. Two months later, he was sent to a second camp in the city of Oldenburg, where he lived for seven months before his asylum application was denied.
Because he had entered the European Union via Switzerland, Germany wasn’t responsible for processing his claim, according to the Dublin Regulation.
While living in the camp, Marcel said other immigrants received better treatment than he did. He recalled one instance when he landed a contract with a local city theater. Hoping to secure the necessary clearance to work, he approached the camp manager, a man named Schmidt, to explain how important the opportunity was to him. But Schmidt denied the request, even though Marcel alleges other asylum seekers had been granted similar clearances.
He went into hiding after his asylum application was denied, and described the next six months as a time of “resistance,” as he evaded immigration authorities.
He remembers one freezing night when immigration officers showed up at the camp, and temperatures had dropped to -10C (14F). Along with other asylum seekers, they fled into the fields. One man from Liberia, he recalls, suffered severe frostbite after crossing a frozen lake barefoot, leaving his feet badly injured.
During those six months, Marcel learned about the humanitarian parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans and decided to apply. His application was approved in early 2023, allowing him to fly to the U.S., where his dream of becoming a professional dancer finally seemed within reach.
Also Read: End of Cuban/Haitian/Nicaraguan/Venezuelan (CHNV) Parole: What Migrants Need To Know
For a while, things looked promising. But when his two-year work permit expired in March 2025, everything began unraveling again.
During his two years on CHNV in New York, Marcel applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a legal immigration option he hoped would protect him after his parole expired. But in March 2025, his application was still pending and his work permit had expired.
He reached out to Rep. Yvette D. Clarke’s office to fill out an update request about his application but the response he received stated that DHS had exercised its discretion to end the CHNV parole program. The decision affected more than 530,000 immigrants in the U.S.. On April 14, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the Trump administration from ending the CHNV humanitarian parole program, giving Marcel and others a ray of hope. However, the hopes were dashed on March 29, when he received a notice to self-deport.
“It’s my second deportation letter in my life,” he said. “I’m wondering how many of them I’ll have eventually. Will there be a time when I’ll be in my country and say I’m no longer an immigrant, or will I have another place to offer me shelter? Or will I keep running every two or three years?”
He now relies on food pantries to eat every day. “Life is hard for me. Sometimes, I don’t even have money to buy a meal, and I can’t work,” he said. “At first, I was embarrassed to go to food pantries, but I’ve come to realize there’s no shame since everyone in those lines is there for the same reason.”
Marcel says he has no community support in New York. He wants to attend school but he can’t even afford the TOEFL test, let alone figure out if he would be eligible for a student visa.
But despite everything, he clings to dance.
“I’ll keep dancing because dance is the only thing holding me. I don’t know how to do anything else,” he said, bursting into tears.
Editor’s Note: At the time of publication, Steeven Marcel had self-deported from the United States. His search for a permanent home continues.
