Haitian and African migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. line up outside a migration office in Tijuana, Mexico. Haitians are flooding the border south of San Diego, prompting the U.S. to resume deportations for those who do not qualify for asylum. © Getty Images

A week after Hurricane Matthew tore through their home country, Haitian immigrants took to the streets of downtown Miami last Friday with a plea for President Barack Obama: Haitian immigrants need “compassion, not deportation.”

Just days before the hurricane, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it would crack down on thousands of Haitians who had been entering the country illegally across the southwest border since the spring, putting an end to special immigration policies Haitians have enjoyed since an earthquake devastated their country in 2010. Under the new policy, the department said it would deport Haitians who could not show they had been persecuted or feared persecution at home.

The department suspended deportations in the wake of the hurricane, which was estimated to have killed at least a thousand people. But many are calling on the administration to do more to help.

A bipartisan group of members of Congress asked Obama to stop noncriminal deportations, warning that sending people back would further exacerbate Haiti’s “chaotic situation.” And immigration advocates and Haitian expatriates in Miami say Haitians should again be granted special status that would allow them to stay in the U.S. temporarily.

In announcing the crackdown, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said that the situation in Haiti had improved enough since the 2010 earthquake for the U.S. to resume deportations.

The U.S. move to tighten immigration was bad enough then, and now Haitians need more help following Hurricane Matthew, said Marleine Bastien, director of the nonprofit Haitian Women of Miami, which organized the Miami rally. “People are just hopeless and scared to death,” Bastien said.

The surge of Haitians arriving at the U.S. border, almost all at a crossing just south of San Diego, began in May. From October to August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents encountered about 4,400 Haitians at the border, compared to about 360 the year before, according to the agency.

And thousands more are on their way. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña told Congress last month that 40,000 more Haitians were making their way to the U.S., calling it “an emergency situation” on the Mexico-California border. That number may rise as more people flee after the hurricane, immigration advocates said.

Not everyone is pleading the Haitians’ case for avoiding deportation.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit that advocates for tighter immigration policies, says they should be allowed to stay in the U.S. only if there are logistical impediments to getting them home, such as closed airports in Haiti, or if they qualify for asylum.

Vaughan and others who study immigration say Haitians come here for many reasons, most of which don’t qualify them for asylum: Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world. And its political system is on shaky ground.

The policy the U.S. put in place after the earthquake motivated many to come, Vaughan said, and while many knew they would not qualify for asylum, they also knew they were unlikely to be deported.