To serve a growing Haitian population on the Eastern Shore, Theslet Benoir and Clemene Bastien opened a grocery store in 2019, and in June 2023, they opened a food truck right next to it.
Soon after, the Haitian immigrants say they began feeling unwelcome.
“I feel a wound,” said Bastien through a translator this week outside of the Norfolk Federal Courthouse. “I feel a deep wound and I don’t know when this wound will ever heal.”
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The two are now suing the Town of Parksley and Town Councilman Henry Nicholson because they say their constitutional rights were violated.
They say Nicholson began harassing them shortly after opening the food truck because he was worried the truck would hurt the business of existing restaurants, including an incident where they say he tried to block a delivery truck from reaching them.
“When Clemene confronted him, he told her to go back to her own country,” attorney Dylan Moore with the law firm Institute for Justice said.