Springfield’s Haitian immigrants are terrified Trump will make them an ‘example’ with mass deportations
Springfield’s Haitian immigrants are terrified Trump will make them an ‘example’ with mass deportations
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Trump baselessly claimed Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating pets during his campaign. Four months ago, then-presidential nominee Donald Trump repeatedly told his supporters a baseless lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating residents’ pets.
![[Trump elevated the rumours about Haitian immigrants eating pets to the national stage during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris.]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/10/09/19/SEI224895193.jpg)
The Trump administration has already begun carrying out Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the country, including in Chicago, Newark, Miami and Colorado. He has also taken several other steps to implement his hardline immigration agenda, including attempting to end birthright citizenship.
Marjorie Koveleski, a Haitian-American Springfield resident for decades who helps usher in the new arrivals, told Politico many are afraid mass deportations will start with them. “They think they’re going to make Springfield the example,” she told Politico.
Brandon Sipes, a humanitarian crisis adviser for the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries in Springfield, told Politico 20-30 Haitian residents used to attend his church. Now, that number “just bottomed out,” he said. “The few families that would come to church, they were very afraid,” he told Politico.
Trump’s rhetoric has taken its toll on the families that call Springfield home. “This was very hard mentally, because at some points in time, people were afraid to come out or to go for groceries, to go shopping or anything,” Viles Dorsainvil, leader of Springfield’s Haitian Community Help & Support Center, told Politico. “That rhetoric was so negative that some folks in town left because they could not put up with all that pressure.”.
