Welcome to Little Haiti, Miami – a piece of the Caribbean in the heart of Florida. Here, small single-story bungalows are surrounded by lush tropical vegetation. On Wednesday, September 23, a muggy heat hung over the city, and when a torrential downpour hit, the streets turned into swimming pools. Yet, among the Creole grocery stores, herbal medicine shops, and colorful murals, pedestrians were nowhere to be seen. Half the businesses had shuttered.

"A few weeks ago, this store had a sound system, you could hear Haitian music out in the street. There were smells of plantain or fried chicken wafting from the restaurants. That's over. Nobody goes outside anymore, the streets and churches are deserted, people are afraid of being arrested by ICE [the United States immigration police]," said Carl-Philippe Juste, a Haitian artist who has lived in Miami since childhood and whose studio is located in the heart of Little Haiti. In the same block, Jan Maupou, the owner of the only Haitian bookstore in the US, seemed very much alone in his shop. "I have never seen anything like this in my life, the neighborhood is deserted," the writer added.

What happened? In recent weeks, ICE agents have ramped up arrests of undocumented Haitians, especially in Florida, which is home to the largest Haitian community in the US. That was no coincidence: On July 27, the humanitarian Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that Haitians had benefited from in the US abruptly ended. The Obama administration had put it in place in 2010 after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, and it had been continually extended ever since, given the country's ongoing security crisis.