Trump’s Lies Reinvigorate Efforts to Aid Haitians in Springfield

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More than 130 people recently packed into a virtual meeting room in Springfield, Ohio. Their purpose? To address the completely unnecessary crisis that Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and their allies have dropped on their laps. Despite the pleas of everyone in the Republican Party Governor Undeterred, the former President and his vice president continued to accuse the Haitian community in Springfield of poaching domestic animals for food.

That’s why several local social workers came together last week to finalize a plan to keep Springfield’s Haitian population, perhaps 20,000 strong, safe. society not only survives this crisis, but also emerges stronger from it.

“When we come together, we know what we’re working for,” Kerry Lee Pedraza, executive director of the local United Way chapter, tells me. “We’re working to make this a more inclusive, united community.”

He won’t say it. I will say it: Trump and his lies do the exact opposite.

It’s been two weeks since Trump used a nationally televised debate with Vice President Kamala Harris to spread the false and completely debunked rumor that in Springfield, “they’re eating dogs and people coming in. They’re eating cats.” He and other Republicans have since doubled down on the malicious myth, acknowledging that they may be wrong—to be frank: they’re absolutely wrong—but seeing the falsehood as useful in furthering a debate about immigration. The suffering they’re inflicting on Haitians in the process is apparently not a major concern. For voters stirred by anti-immigrant frustration, the fabricated story is merely to climb speech.

The crisis has shaken the entire town of Springfield, a community that has long welcomed tourists to see the state’s only Frank Lloyd Wright prairie style House is currently battling an influx of white supremacists and conspiracy theorists. Ohio State Highway Patrol officers are still on the streets order The Governor and City Hall are on an episodic quarantine cycle. closed reopened due to bomb threats but remains heavily guarded. Some universities have moved to fully remote learning as a precaution. Absenteeism and truancy affect non-Haitians more than anyone else.

But at last week’s Haiti Coalition summit, no one noticed that things had changed most dramatically for Haitians in Springfield, some estimates of whom number as many as 20,000, many of whom are refugees from the pandemic. It’s hard not to notice the sudden absence of Haitians from local grocery stores, as many still choose to go to work and do little else. But it’s also noticeable in the increasing demand for English as a Second Language classes and the growing interest in hiring Haitian Creole interpreters in preschool programs to accelerate the language skills of Springfield’s youngest residents.

Largely behind the scenes, the local United Way has emerged as the accidental quarterback of a coalition of social service groups working with the Haitian community. Pedraza has presented a detailed and ambitious plan to bolster services for Haitians in the region during this time of crisis: more interpreters for young children, language teachers for adults, even driving lessons for new arrivals, in light of the deadly nature of the current panic as a catalyst accident From the hands of a Haitian driver.

Pedraza recalled more than 45 Haitians who attended a recent ESL class he supervised. Given the long waitlist, United Way to look raise in advance Launching another 10 weeks of classes to ease the burden on volunteer instructors who currently run around 15 sessions.

Helping to navigate the community through this crisis is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who lives nearby on his family farm in Cedarville and has recently made it a point to spend more public time in town than usual. DeWine, city officials and law enforcement have repeatedly said the GOP’s framing of Springfield as a Port-au-Prince stand-in where Haitians hunt dogs, cats and geese for meat is nonsense.

Still in New York Times Opinion article It was published On September 20, DeWine went easy on Trump and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. “Their verbal attacks on these Haitians who are in the United States legally dilute and overshadow a must-win debate about the border,” DeWine wrote. While no one would accuse DeWine of being a coward in standing up to his party, the man unapproved Mitt Romney reaffirmed his support for a ticket that spread lies about his home state because of its anti-immigrant rhetoric in 2012.

After the debate, Trump said he was planning a rally in Springfield, a promise that felt more like a threat to many in the community. So far, no such event has been announced.

For people like Pedraza, any outsider trying to score points on a man-made crisis is unwelcome. “I think there are more of us who say, Please stay away“” he says. “It’s a great town and we love it when people come and visit us. But if you’re not coming here to visit and do something meaningful and productive, then we don’t need you in our town.”

When the native-born chief of the local United Way, someone with forty years of experience working in nonprofits, tells you to dig in the dirt, it might be worth listening.

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