Three years ago, Shermilla was a 14-year-old student in southern Haiti, on track for her school's honor roll. Today she is an 18-year-old college student whose future depends on immigration decisions in Washington, the Haitian Times reports. The newspaper uses a pseudonym to protect her.

A relative in Brooklyn had offered to sponsor her mother through the Biden administration's humanitarian parole program, but her parents decided Shermilla should go instead. “In Haiti, it's not that safe for a young girl to get up and go to school every day because of the gang violence,” she said. “So I thought life was going to be easy. In reality, it's not that.”

In Brooklyn she enrolled in 10th grade, worked as a youth camp counselor from age 16 for $17 an hour, and sent about $400 of her $850 to $900 monthly pay to her mother and stepmother to support three younger siblings.

In January 2026 her work permit under the parole program expired, and her application for Temporary Protected Status was still pending. Her employer had to let her go, and no one else would hire her. “Stopping me from working is what affects my entire family,” she said.

She kept studying. At graduation in June she was featured as a top student, and 26 colleges accepted her. Two offered full-tuition scholarships.

She is one of roughly 19,000 undocumented college students from Haiti in the United States, according to the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. Whether she can stay enrolled, with no income and the threat of immigration enforcement, remains uncertain.