At a church rectory in Boston, Haitian migrants place their hopes on hard work and helping hands

By Steve Leblanc | The Associated Press Jimene Admettre, center, sits next to her husband Ernseau, right, and holds her daughter Gabyana while learning computer skills, Friday, Dec. 22, 2023, in a rectory building where they are staying at the Bethel AME Church in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Demand for shelter has increased as Massachusetts struggles to find newly arriving migrants places to stay after hitting a state-imposed limit of 7,500 families in its emergency homeless shelter system last month. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) BOSTON (AP) — When Ernseau Admettre decided to leave Haiti and head north with his young family in tow, very little was guaranteed. But the situation in his homeland, beset by poverty and gang violence, had grown so dire that a risky passage to and then across the United States’ southern border offered a kind of hope he said he could never find by staying put. Admettre discovered Boston through the internet and set his sights on Massachusetts, and the trip took the family through several countries including the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Mexico. Ernseau Admettre holds his daughter Gabyana, Friday, Dec. 22, 2023, in a rectory building where they are staying at the Bethel...