"Better Have This Instead of Nothing": Haitian Migrants Navigating Labor, Race and Daily Life through Staffing Agencies

Background: Migration is simultaneously about labor and race. Issues of labor and race intersect and co-occur, violently, in experiences and processes of migration. Scholarship on the racialized laboring of migrants call attention to the institutions that facilitate it. The macro-institutional lens on migration examines how governments, policies, migrant-serving organizations and employers delimit the everyday lives of migrants. The micro lens, meanwhile, interrogates how migrants experience those institutions, services and policies.

Thus, macro and micro perspectives on migration raise questions about the intermediary institutions at the middle level that link institutions (macro/structures) with migrants (micro/experiences). The staffing agency is that intermediary precisely: connecting employers with migrants, and translating policies and labor market opportunities into lived experience. However, staffing agencies have largely escaped academic attention, precisely because they fall in the negative space between disciplinary areas of interest; staffing agencies are neither regulatory/state, service nor employing institutions.

Given the recent surge of Haitian migrants in the U.S., intermediary agencies, including those that are Haitian-led, appear to be emerging as key players, especially in the Midwest. This research explores the institutional structures and processes surrounding the racialized labor of migrants, spotlighting staffing agencies as a key player.

Method: We examined semi-structured interviews, as part of a broader ethnographic study. Our study sites are Springfield, Lima, OH, and Indianapolis,—identified as ‘new immigrant destinations’—that have become unexpected centers for migration realities of Haitian migration. We conducted interviews (in person, zoom, phone) with leaders (n=5) and clients (n=10) of staffing agencies, recruited via snowball sampling and conducted in English or Creole. Interviews were transcribed (and translated), and then analyzed thematically. First, we conducted open analysis of ideas from interviews, drawing from researchers’ memos and deliberations. Second, we winnowed ideas into sensitizing concepts and developed a four-part conceptual codebook for more structured coding. Third, we coded for patterns and commonalities across the interviews, while paying attention to exceptions and divergences.

Results: Our results demonstrate how staffing agencies function not only for employment, but also sociocultural, political and service functions for Haitian migrants. We identify four tensions, that unpack how those functions manifest. First, staffing agencies provide jobs that would not otherwise be available, but those jobs often open up labor exploitation and vulnerability. Second, staffing agencies juggle being a business for financial profit, but also a human service organization offering support for things like housing, transportation and health care. Third, we argue that staffing agencies are de facto implementers of policy insofar as they translate/apply legal rules about employment and immigration status into actionable realities. At the same time, staffing agencies do what we term ‘sidestepping’ and ‘loopholeing’ within the grayer areas of policy. Conclusions and Implications:These empirical results enable us to theoretically explore the significant contradictions underlying Haitian migration in the U.S. Midwest, as well as the institutions that follow closely behind. It highlights what the daily life of black migrants, particularly from the Caribbean, looks like. Lastly, this study helps us understand how labor, race, and migration intersect in the context of new immigrant destinations.