ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Margarette Pierre and Chantal Moril are two young women sharing a cheerful apartment and excited about the classes they started Tuesday at Central New Mexico Community College.
But the two also share a grim past and an uncertain future that could send them back to their native Haiti, even before they finish the semester.
Each lost an arm in the weeks after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti a year ago today when houses collapsed around them.
Although they hadn't known each other previously, they traveled together to Philadelphia in August and were fitted with prosthetic arms. They moved to Albuquerque about four months ago and lived with sponsors until they got their own apartment provided by donors near CNM.
Both are adamant about their desire to remain in Albuquerque and pursue careers in health sciences. Pierre wants to be a nurse; Moril a therapist.
Haiti "is no good," Moril, 18, said through an interpreter this week. Conditions in Haiti haven't improved since the earthquake, she said. "The country is falling apart."
Moril speaks by phone with her parents, who live in a camp in Carrefour, a former tourist destination just west of Haiti's capital of Port Au Prince that is now the site of many tent cities. The town is near the quake's epicenter.
Pierre's mother and sister are more fortunate. They have a home in Cap-Haitien on Haiti's north coast, far from the quake's epicenter. But Pierre, 17, sees little future for herself in Haiti.
"I like it here," she said.
Pierre and Moril came to the United States in August on a "humanitarian parole," which allows non-U.S. citizens to temporarily enter the country "based on urgent humanitarian reasons."
Unless their parole is extended by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, they must leave the country by May 1.
"These women need to stay here," said Chuck McCune, co-founder of the Prizm Foundation, a New Mexico nonprofit dedicated to providing safe housing for Haiti earthquake victims. "It's not safe for them to go back to Haiti."
McCune and others plan to ask immigration officials to grant the two a temporary protected status, which would allow them to stay longer and obtain a green card, enabling them to work.
The Department of Homeland Security made Haitians eligible for temporary protected status days after the earthquake based on "conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country's nationals from being able to return safely," according to the agency's website.
Citizenship and Immigration Services has estimated about 60,000 Haitians have applied nationally for temporary protected status during the past year.
McCune, who visited Haiti in June, said conditions there have changed little in the last year.
The United Nations this week estimated that as of Jan. 1, 810,000 people lived in more than 1,000 camps in Haiti, down from a peak of 1.5 million in July.
A cholera outbreak that erupted in October has killed at least 3,600 and potentially could infect 400,000 during the coming year, according to the U.N.
McCune contends official tallies underestimate cholera deaths and camp populations because conditions in rural areas are largely unmonitored. Many camps are unofficial, and many deaths are unrecorded, he said.
Haiti "has a large population of homeless, nomadic people who move from place to place to where services are available," McCune said. Many camp dwellers have fled cities to escape violence and rape, he said.
Even in Cap-Haitien, where Pierre's mother and sister live, political violence is common, he said.
"The whole country is a very dangerous place," McCune said. "For our country to send (Pierre and Moril) back would be unconscionable."