“It may seem like just politics,” said Karl Racine, who served two terms as attorney general for the District of Columbia and immigrated to the United States from Haiti when he was 6. “But it’s serious business, with the real possibility of violence.”
Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

Far From Ohio, Haitian Americans Feel the Sting of Threats in Springfield

They charged Donald J. Trump and JD Vance, who spread baseless rumors that Haitians in an Ohio city were eating pets, with imperiling their community for political gain.

by · NY Times

Haitian Americans across the United States denounced former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate this week for trafficking in baseless, racially charged rumors about a Haitian community in Ohio.

In spreading debunked rumors about Haitian immigrants in Springfield abducting and eating household pets, Mr. Trump and others have stirred anger and put Haitians and many other people at risk, said Karl Racine, who served two terms as attorney general for the District of Columbia and immigrated to the United States from Haiti when he was 6.

“It may seem like just politics,” Mr. Racine, 61, said. “But it’s serious business, with the real possibility of violence.”

Since Mr. Trump’s remarks, which his campaign has also repeated, Springfield has received dozens of bomb threats, many of them against schools and colleges, and in some cases specifically targeting Haitians. On Tuesday, state troopers were deployed at the city’s schools to ensure that students were safe.

Mr. Racine, who made combating hate the focus of his term as president of the National Association of Attorneys General, said that he was “horrified” by the conduct of the Republican candidates. He said their vitriol “dehumanized and diminished” the immigrants of Springfield, Ohio, who have filled jobs and injected new energy into fading neighborhoods.

The United States is home to about 1.2 million people of Haitian heritage, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Since Haitians began arriving in the 1950s amid political upheaval in their homeland, many of them, and many of their U.S.-born children, have climbed the socioeconomic ladder and integrated into American society.

The number of Haitians entering the United States has soared in recent years. Hundreds of thousands have crossed the border or benefited from a Biden administration program that allows them to be admitted temporarily if they have a U.S. sponsor. Many newcomers take blue-collar jobs as home care aides, warehouse packers and factory workers, joining a Haitian diaspora that also includes physicians, entertainers, lawyers and professional athletes.

Markenzy Lapointe, a Haitian immigrant and former Marine, is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida and will oversee the federal prosecution of the man charged this week in connection with what the authorities say was an attempted assassination of Mr. Trump.

In Florida, which has some 440,000 people of Haitian ancestry, Haitian Americans serve in city and county commissions, the State Legislature and Congress. New York has the country’s second-largest Haitian population, followed by the Boston area.

New enclaves have emerged in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere as natural disasters, political turmoil and violence have fueled emigration in the last decade to South America and North America.

Springfield, which sits between Columbus and Dayton, is one of those new enclaves. It has drawn thousands of Haitians, according to the local officials, lured by an abundance of jobs and a low cost of living. They have helped the economy grow and the population rebound. But the speed and volume of newcomers have also pushed up housing costs and strained clinics, schools and social services.

Senator JD Vance, Mr. Trump’s running mate who grew up in Middletown, about 40 miles from Springfield, began highlighting the situation in July to criticize the Biden administration’s border policies. He has been calling the Haitians illegal immigrants even though they have temporary legal status that allows them to live and work in the United States.

Last Monday, Mr. Vance wrote in a social media post viewed more than 11 million times that “reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”

Then during last week’s presidential debate, Mr. Trump echoed the claim about the Haitians saying: “They’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats.”

Jessie Woo, 34, a Haitian American television personality, said that the episode recalled another painful time for Haitians in the 1980s, when they were, as a nationality, designated as high risk for H.I.V., leading to widespread stigmatization of Haitians.

“We are seeing history repeating itself,” said Ms. Woo, who is a comedian on the show “Wild ‘n Out” and lives in Atlanta.

It was there, in March 2021, that a gunman killed eight people, six of them women of Asian descent. The attack came as officials were tracking a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the pandemic.

“The Haitian community is afraid,” Ms. Woo said. “We can lose our lives. Racism can actually kill you.”

Ruthzee Louijeune, the president of the City Council in Boston and its first elected Haitian American member, said she tried to ignore the racist memes and xenophobic rhetoric that erupted on social media after Mr. Trump’s debate remarks. But as misinformation spread, she felt compelled to speak up.

“These are lies that people have recanted, but Donald Trump and JD Vance are repeating them, knowing that they’re spreading lies,” said Ms. Louijeune, 38, who was raised in the heart of the city’s Haitian community, and went on to attend Columbia University and Harvard Law School.

“It’s disgusting, and it should make everyone livid,” she said. “They’re using racism to distract us because they do not have a plan for the American people.”

In 2017, Mr. Trump told officials in a White House meeting that Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS.” In 2018, he said that places like Haiti and Africa were “shithole countries.” He has made immigration a core issue since his first run for president, and demeaning people from other countries has remained a staple of his campaign rhetoric.

“This isn’t the first time, or the second or the third time,” said Geralde Gabeau, the founder and director of the Immigrant Family Services Institute in Massachusetts. Whenever Mr. Trump is talking about Haiti, Dr. Gabeau said, “he wants it to disappear from the earth.”

Many Haitian Americans said that the recent attacks felt personal, even if they were aimed at immigrants in Ohio, far from where they live.

Mia Love, 47, who served as a Republican congresswoman from Utah, said that she was done with giving Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt.

“He has painted a picture of monsters eating cats and dogs,” said Ms. Love, the daughter of Haitian immigrants.

Her mother had worked for 28 years in a nursing home in Connecticut, caring for people at the end of their lives. Her father had toiled long hours as a janitor.

Stendley Dorisme owns a salon on Springfield Avenue in Irvington, N.J., near Newark. The thoroughfare teems with Haitian-run businesses, including groceries, tattoo parlors, bakeries and restaurants.

Mr. Dorisme, 48, came to the United States as a teenager to escape political violence in Haiti, a place he no longer feels secure returning to. He’s not sure he feels safe in his adopted home, either.

“If somebody says they’re going to kill you here, you might as well stay home,” he said, adding, “We’re here to help the country grow, not break it down.”

Handel Destinvil, 40, remembers how hard his mother worked as a garment worker and home health aide to give him a fair shot at the American dream.

“When Trump talks about Haitians, he’s talking about real people,” said Mr. Destinvil, a deputy state attorney general in New Jersey. “He’s talking about family, he’s talking about me.”

The attacks are reminiscent of smears lodged against immigrants throughout U.S. history, said Reynold Verret, president of Xavier University of Louisiana.

“Immigrants have been treated unkindly and used politically as leverage before,” said Dr. Verret, whose Haitian family settled in Brooklyn when he was 8.

“At the same time, people have been welcoming them, teaching them English and placing them in jobs,” said Dr. Verret, a biochemist with a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I have faith that the better angels will triumph,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Amy Lynch, Mark Bonamo and Jenna Russell. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

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