On New Year’s Day, Jean Montrevil was detained in an immigration lockup. Less than a month later, after being freed following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, he will stand outside another jail where immigrants are held to protest the laws that placed him a breath away from deportation.

Ethnic media outlets are providing a vital link to news and information about the situation in Haiti as Haitians in the U.S. scramble to learn the fate of friends and family members following Tuesday’s devastating earthquake and relief efforts are organized in communities across the U.S.

Can people change? This question is at the heart of the fight between Homeland Security and detained immigration activist Jean Montrevil. The answer has major implications for the reforms that lawmakers propose when they take up immigration reform after health care.

New York police on Tuesday arrested eight clergy members and two community activists who were demonstrating outside a Lower Manhattan immigration detention center against the likely deportation of civic activist Jean Montrevil.

Jean Montrevil, a founder of the local branch of the New Sanctuary Coalition and a legal U.S. resident born in Haiti, was detained by immigration authorities on Dec. 30 during one of his monthly check-ins and is now awaiting deportation at a York, Pa., jail.