Ohio Haitians Feel Panic, Local Christians Try to Repair Divides

On Thursday, Viles Dorsainvil, a former pastor in Haiti and the leader of Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, Ohio, was getting phone call after phone call from local immigrants feeling “panic” over their safety.

The 60,000-person city has felt the strain and culture clash of welcoming 15,000 Haitians over the past four years, most of whom have temporary legal status in the US due to violence in their home country. Those tensions escalated this week as false rumors about Haitians— fanned by former president Donald Trump—came into the national spotlight.

Local Ohio church leaders are largely supportive of the Haitian community, which is predominantly Christian, but they are navigating division in their own Christian communities too. Pastors of some of the largest local churches joined meetings, press conferences, and phone calls this week to debunk misconceptions about Haitians and the situation on the ground.

Still, social media and the national news cycle (conservative news outlets ran headlines featuring a resident describing Springfield as a “dystopian nightmare”) have been louder locally than church responses, with a feedback loop that has deepened divisions even within the local Christian community.

Local pastors, in interviews with CT, said the social fabric of the community has been ripped apart, with real-world consequences for locals and immigrant neighbors in their own churches. Some schools and government buildings shuttered on Thursday over unspecified threats, and officials who spoke against the rumors were doxxed online. On Friday, two elementary schools in Springfield were evacuated and another school was closed.

“Words matter,” said Dorsainvil. “What you say can unite people, or it can create great division in a community. This is what we are experiencing now.”

One Haitian who bought a home in Springfield a month ago told Dorsainvil that he was considering leaving. The former pastor counseled him to remain calm, to not make an emotional decision. Dorsainvil admitted that he felt panicked too.

But he added, “We’ve been through a lot from Haiti to here—we are used to situations like this.”

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At the presidential debate on Tuesday, Trump repeated internet claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were stealing and eating people’s pets. Trump’s running mate and Ohio native JD Vance also asserted that Haitians were killing and eating pets.

“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said.

Springfield officials have denied that they have reports or evidence of that happening. The rumors originated from social media—one viral post had a photo that was taken in Columbus, Ohio of a Black man carrying a goose.

“It’s like a tornado right now, politically and socially,” said Jeremy Hudson, pastor of one of the largest churches in town, Fellowship Church. “We don’t know what direction it’s going to go, what it’s going to take out, what the devastation is going to be.”

He added, “We do know in about five weeks the election is going to be over … and we’re going to be left trying to sew up the tears.”

On Wednesday night, Fellowship held a worship service, and Hudson found himself despondent about “the brokenness of our community and the brokenness of the ‘big C’ church” and the “slander” he had seen become the norm in conversations.

“Too many people in the ‘big C’ church in Springfield have taken up sides on the left or the right,” he said. “Because talking heads on TV are saying certain things, we’re giving ourselves [permission] to repeat those things, whether they’re true or not.”

Pastor Carl Ruby of Central Christian Church in Springfield has spoken in support of the Haitian community and saw Facebook comments in a local group that he needed to be run out of the area.

Ruby said he hopes it’s “one of those bad things that can give a megaphone to the gospel. … The contrast of the gospel message is so stark. It’s so hopeful.”

The city has been tense for months. Springfield has been working to absorb the arrival of an influx of Haitian immigrants who are filling jobs in a growing manufacturing sector.

Conflict in the community bubbled up a year ago when a Haitian immigrant crashed into a school bus and killed an 11-year-old boy. The Trump campaign began to talk about the crash again this week, with Vance posting that the child was “murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here.”

This week, the boy’s father, Nathan Clark, said it was an accident, not a murder, and asked Trump and other politicians not to bring up his son in political debates.

Haitian immigrants are largely in the United States legally. Ever since the big earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Haitians have fallen under a “temporary protected status” (TPS) federal immigration program that allows immigrants to have temporary legal status in the United States following a natural disaster or other upheaval. Haitians can register through TPS to receive documents to work and public benefits even if they entered the country illegally.

The Trump administration tried unsuccessfully to end the program for Haitians but was blocked by federal courts. The Biden administration extended Haiti’s TPS status, based on the country’s spiraling gang violence and lack of a functioning government.

“You can critique the program,” said Matthew Soerens, who leads advocacy at World Relief, an evangelical refugee resettlement organization. “But you shouldn’t malign the people … they are lawfully present.”

Some of the biggest churches in the Springfield area have tried to support the Haitian community. Fairhaven Church, a megachurch in Dayton, has partnered with immigrants, and its leadership participated in impromptu calls with other community leaders this week about the fallout.

Fellowship Church’s campus near downtown Springfield has seen a big increase in Haitian residents.

“Parts of having your community grow by 33 percent almost overnight is good. There is a lot of opportunity in that,” said Hudson. “And part of this influx of people without the resources for our infrastructure is really difficult … to say it’s been consuming is to put it lightly.”

Hudson is a chaplain for the police department, so he knows how difficult it has been for officers to navigate the sudden arrival of 15,000 people, though he said the department hasn’t seen a rash of crime attributed to Haitians.

The city is mainly feeling pains from sudden population growth, along with barriers of language and culture. Pastors said health clinics are overwhelmed, schools don’t have enough teachers or translators in classrooms, and first responders are stretched to cover a much bigger population.

“It’s not refugee resettlement, so there’s not a support infrastructure in place,” said World Relief’s Soerens. Refugee resettlement, but not TPS, comes with federal funding for experienced resettlement organizations to help immigrants with transition. “We would never resettle 20,000 refugees in a community in a short period of time.”

But he said it’s common for immigrants to move for jobs, as happened here.

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On the positive side, Springfield pastors said Haitians are buying homes in a Rust Belt city that had seen decline, opening Creole restaurants, starting nonprofits, and growing churches.

Other declining Rust Belt cities have seen revitalization with incoming immigrants. In Utica, New York, one in four residents is a refugee—but that process happened over decades.

“The Haitian church is the fastest growing church in Springfield,” said Hudson.

Most of what local churches in Springfield are doing to minister to arriving Haitians is providing language classes. The Nehemiah Foundation, an umbrella organization connecting churches and Christian nonprofit work in Springfield, is working with churches to start a large ESL program, Ruby said.

But previous immigrants are also helping the new immigrants adjust. Pastor Laurent Muvunyi, a Congolese refugee who immigrated to the United States in 2007, works at his church Living Hope and in local nonprofits at the area to help immigrants integrate into the community.

A Haitian family is part of his church, he said, and he’s been checking on them to see how they are doing. He’s been encouraged to see Christian organizations getting involved in the situation.

But Muvunyi said the local and national tensions have made immigrants locally feel ill at ease. Now he hears more people ask in everyday conversation if someone is Haitian, which he finds disconcerting.

“God is bringing neighbors to us here in the United States,” said Muvunyi. “But I feel like Americans need … to see who are these people, what can they do in our lives, how can they be a part of our economy and our Christian lives, and also our community life.”

“Pray for us,” said Dorsainvil, the Haitian nonprofit leader in Springfield. “Understand our reality. Be patient with us. We can pray together, work together, understand each other.”

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