Longtime Albertville Pastor Johny Pierre-Charles says he is regularly taking calls from Alabama migrants who are afraid to leave their homes as a result of recent ire directed at his city’s Haitian community.

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

Some “migrants throughout the state … are scared some days just to leave the house,” she wrote.

“He counsels them ‘to be patient — to stay calm, don’t be afraid,’” the article continues.

In August, photos of Haitian immigrants in Albertville being bused to and from work at a poultry processing plant prompted questions about who the people were and where they came from, leading to what city officials called “baseless accusations, and hurtful rhetoric,” as AL.com’s William Thornton reported previously.

This resulted in a series of community meetings and the formation of a non-profit.

In Athens and Sylacauga, city residents have been particularly focused on immigrant workers and their effect on crime, school overcrowding and housing.

But officials there said Haitian immigrants make up a small percentage of the population, and they have seen no increase in crime since larger amounts of immigrants began arriving this year following unrest on the Caribbean Island, Thornton wrote.

“There are definitely people that feel differently about the situation in our community, but there are so many of us who want this to be a place of peace, where people are welcome to come and lay down roots and be the family that God has called us to be,” said Jeff Lamour, a Haitian resident of Albertville and businessman.

In September, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall met with Talladega County law enforcement to offer assistance following baseless claims former president Donald Trump made about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating their neighbors’ pets.

“It was embarrassing,” Sylacauga Mayor Jim Heigl told Calabro. “He met with our county’s task force, he met with the sheriffs, he met with all our police investigators, everything—and he could not find anything wrong.”

Last month, Lamour helped organize a prayer rally of around 100 people from at least ten different Haitian, Hispanic and white congregations in what he said was an attempt to bring healing to the Albertville community.

“We want to reeducate people to integrate people into our community,” he said.