For Richard Jacque-Pierre, nothing is more important than becoming an American citizen. But living in America has been a struggle for Jacque-Pierre, a 58-year-old Haitian refugee who came to Miami shortly after the 2010 earthquake looking for a job to support his family.

Unable to work legally in the United States, he is now trying to stay afloat in what he still considers to be a land of opportunity.

“It is my dream to be an American citizen,” said Jacque-Pierre, . “This is a better quality of life for me and my family.”

Jacque-Pierre was an entrepreneur who had business ideas in unlikely places. He opened a clothing resell shop in Caracas, Venezuela in the 1980s. He later returned to Haiti, where he started a transportation company to shuttle tourists between Port-au-Prince and the Dominican Republic.

When the Jan. 12 earthquake struck, he was in a Port-au-Prince hospital, being treated for a broken leg he suffered the day before in a car accident.

A doctor was wrapping his leg, Jacque-Pierre recalled.

“The hospital began to shake and to break apart, and the doctor died on top of me.”

For four days, Jacque-Pierre was pinned under the debris with the doctor’s body. He remembers the initial shock of hearing moans and cries in the dark from people dying. The only light came from a distant crack in the rubble, which Jacque-Pierre considered his window of hope. On the fourth day, a group of men found him and pulled him to safety.

Almost two years since the earthquake destroyed much of Port-au-Prince, security remains elusive for Jacque-Pierre. He now lives in constant fear of being deported to Haiti.

Karim Raymond, a program coordinator at the Center for Haitian Studies, heard Jacque-Pierre’s story late one afternoon last February.

. She offered him a ride home from the bus stop outside her Little Haiti office.

“The buses take too long on the weekend,” said Raymond. “He was on crutches and needed help.” During the drive, Jacque-Pierre described how the quake decimated his family, killing eight of his 14 children, including one from each of five sets of twin boys.

The oldest and possibly most ambitious of Jacque-Pierre’s sons, James, was a doctor practicing medicine in Venezuela. Two days after the earthquake, he returned to Haiti to search for missing family members. He was killed in an aftershock.

Since her chance encounter with Jacque-Pierre, Raymond has been providing support with money from her own pocket.

“He doesn’t like asking for my help,” said Raymond. “But I feel like he is my responsibility. It almost made me cry when I found out that he was eating only bread and water for the last month. He doesn’t tell me.”

Jacque-Pierre’s biggest expense is his roughly $550 monthly rent, which Raymond occasionally pays. In addition, Raymond buys Jacque-Pierre food, bus passes, and clothes when she can. But Raymond’s budget is tight and she frets about running out of money.

“My biggest worry is that he won’t be able to work legally,” said Raymond. “Other people have stopped caring for him. They stopped taking his phone calls. It is hard when you don’t see an end in sight.”

In addition to immigration and financial concerns, Jacque-Pierre also is trying to get healthy. For months after he was pulled from the debris, he received treatment in makeshift tent hospitals for his badly damaged leg.