Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
The people of Springfield, Ohio, are exhausted. It’s been one hit after another lately.
Some of the trouble started back in 2024, when Donald Trump claimed during a presidential debate that Haitian immigrants in this small blue-collar city were eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs.
It was a false, racist rumor, but it thrust the otherwise quiet town into the national spotlight. White supremacists showed up to march. Bomb threats rocked local schools. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who was born in Springfield, sent state troopers to protect residents.
Then Trump returned to the White House and began his deportation campaign. His administration has sought to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for certain immigrants. That’s a humanitarian designation that allows a person to stay in the United States because their home country is too dangerous for them to repatriate.
With TPS for Haitians on the brink, this little Midwestern city with a big Haitian population is back in the spotlight, coping with all the chaos and terror that attention from Trump and his administration can unleash. “It just feels like a lot of forces are coming to bear on this one small city,” says Marjory Wentworth, a writer who volunteers with efforts to help immigrants there. “We are trying to navigate,” adds Vilès Dorsainvil, a Haitian community leader, but it’s “very difficult.”
The newcomers were welcomed by DeWine and business leaders who were worried about Springfield’s long declining population and hoped immigrants could fill jobs there. “You speak to the mayor, ministers, business owners, individuals on the school board, neighbors—they’ll tell you the Haitian community has revitalized a city that was dying,” says Pastor Keny Felix, who leads the Southern Baptist Convention National Haitian Fellowship from Florida and has met with community leaders in Springfield.
www.motherjones.com
Some of the trouble started back in 2024, when Donald Trump claimed during a presidential debate that Haitian immigrants in this small blue-collar city were eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs.
It was a false, racist rumor, but it thrust the otherwise quiet town into the national spotlight. White supremacists showed up to march. Bomb threats rocked local schools. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who was born in Springfield, sent state troopers to protect residents.
Then Trump returned to the White House and began his deportation campaign. His administration has sought to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for certain immigrants. That’s a humanitarian designation that allows a person to stay in the United States because their home country is too dangerous for them to repatriate.
With TPS for Haitians on the brink, this little Midwestern city with a big Haitian population is back in the spotlight, coping with all the chaos and terror that attention from Trump and his administration can unleash. “It just feels like a lot of forces are coming to bear on this one small city,” says Marjory Wentworth, a writer who volunteers with efforts to help immigrants there. “We are trying to navigate,” adds Vilès Dorsainvil, a Haitian community leader, but it’s “very difficult.”
The newcomers were welcomed by DeWine and business leaders who were worried about Springfield’s long declining population and hoped immigrants could fill jobs there. “You speak to the mayor, ministers, business owners, individuals on the school board, neighbors—they’ll tell you the Haitian community has revitalized a city that was dying,” says Pastor Keny Felix, who leads the Southern Baptist Convention National Haitian Fellowship from Florida and has met with community leaders in Springfield.
The Haitians of Springfield are under attack yet again
First Trump claimed they ate cats. Now he aims to send them back to a violent place.
www.motherjones.com