Johnny Pierre-Charles, a longtime Albertville pastor, says he regularly receives calls from Alabama migrants who are afraid to leave their homes because of recent anger directed at his city’s Haitian community.

“They want to know what will happen after the election if they start trying to get into Canada,” Pierre-Charles recently told The Atlantic’s Elaine Plott Calabro.

Some “migrants across the state… are sometimes afraid to simply leave the house,” she wrote.

“He advises them to ‘be patient – stay calm, don’t be afraid,'” the article continues.

In August, photographs of Haitian immigrants in Albertville being driven to and from work at a poultry plant raised questions about who the people were and where they were from, leading to what city officials called “unfounded accusations and offensive rhetoric,” as expressed by A.L. This was previously reported by .com’s William Thornton.

This led to a series of public meetings and the creation of a non-profit organization.

In Athens and Sylacauga, city residents were especially focused on immigrant workers and their impact on crime, school overcrowding, and housing development.

But local officials said Haitian immigrants make up a small percentage of the population and they have not seen an increase in crime since more immigrants began arriving on the Caribbean island this year following unrest, Thornton wrote.