\n<\/p>\n
On August 14, Philomene Philostin, a local youth pastor, business owner, and nonprofit leader, stood on the street corner outside Springfield, Ohio\u2019s City Hall, crying out in Haitian Creole.<\/p>\n
Fontil Daity, a Haitian immigrant who leads a local Pentecostal Haitian church, interpreted in English: \u201cHaitians! Haitians! . . . We cannot take it anymore. We ask for God in heaven to hear our cries!\u201d<\/p>\n
About 75 people gathered around them in the sweltering heat, many holding signs that read, \u201cLove your neighbor\u201d\u2014a reference to the biblical command to love one\u2019s neighbor as oneself.<\/p>\n
Philostin said she initiated the gathering in response to a new flurry of ICE raids in the city starting the day before. The peaceful protest wove together prayers and testimonies from community members, lawyers, and faith leaders. Daity, singing in Haitian Creole, then in English, led attendees in the hymn \u201cPrecious Lord Take My Hand.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
For many of the more than 10,000 Haitians in the city of about 58,000, their faith in God\u2014and the support of local immigrants\u2019 rights organizers and faith leaders\u2014is what\u2019s sustaining them as they reckon with the end of Temporary Protected Status.\n<\/p>\n
Many of Springfield\u2019s Haitians attend evangelical, Catholic, mainline, and Pentecostal churches across the city. And in the months of dread and uncertainty before a federal judge cleared the way on August 4 for the termination of Haiti\u2019s TPS protections, faith leaders and congregations from within and beyond the Haitian community have emerged as pivotal actors in the support networks for affected families.\n<\/p>\n
Now, those networks are adapting in real time to respond to what they see as a human-engineered spiritual, moral, and humanitarian crisis, especially as ICE activity stepped up over the weekend.<\/p>\n
That crisis had a face last week. Charles Beaubrun Ardouin, a Haitian immigrant and Springfield resident who spoke at the August 14 protest, was driving through the city dropping at least five other Haitian <\/strong>men off after their nightshift at a local automobile factory when he was stopped by several ICE vehicles, he said. Ardouin, a US citizen, said about 10 agents\u2014most wearing masks\u2014demanded identification for everyone in the vehicle.\n<\/p>\n After detaining the other men, ICE agents reportedly told Ardouin they would be taken to Butler County Jail in Hamilton, Ohio. Ardouin said all the men have pending asylum cases.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people are coming to the United States of America for freedom. They\u2019re coming for work. All they want is due process,\u201d Ardouin said in an interview. \u201cThe first time I came to the United States of America, I felt freedom. But now, I (feel) fear.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Pro-immigrant faith leaders had long been bracing for a Minneapolis-style ICE crackdown against the Haitian community in Springfield. <\/strong>Instead, ICE has shifted tactics: Beginning just over a week after the termination of TPS for the country\u2019s 330,000 Haitian recipients became enforceable on August 5, ICE has conducted several rapid, small-scale ICE detentions. And since late July, ICE has sent many Haitian residents in Springfield letters ordering them to report to the Blue Ash ICE office<\/a> over an hour away, near Cincinnati.\n<\/p>\n There, many former TPS holders, all of whom came to the US legally seeking safety from disastrous conditions in Haiti, have reported being given the choice between self-deporting<\/a> with $2,600, or being released with ankle monitors\u2014which many in Springfield referred to as \u201cshackles\u201d\u2014and a restriction to limit travel to within a 75-mile radius of their address.\n<\/p>\n Without work permits, the Haitian residents are struggling to pay for rent and groceries. Some are hiding in their homes, too afraid of ICE to shop at local businesses or attend church. Others have had their drivers\u2019 licenses expire or become nonrenewable. Parents are filling out legal paperwork to give power of attorney to neighbors and friends in case they get separated from their children, especially those born in the US who have legal citizenship. This weekend, local Haitian leaders shared reports that one, possibly two, Haitian immigrants had died by suicide.<\/p>\n Those claims were not able to be independently verified.<\/p>\n \u201cJesus says, \u2018Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.\u2019 And all that we can do is to go to Him right now, because we don\u2019t have any other choice,\u201d faith leader and executive director of the Haitian Supporter Center,<\/a> Viles Dorsainvil, said.\n<\/p>\n Hours after the ICE raid Ardouin witnessed, staff and volunteers met with clients at the support center located in a Church of the Nazarene church. Beneath papered-over windows, boxes of diapers and food donations\u2014Cheerios, black beans, ramen noodles\u2014crowded one corner of the main room. In a three-hour span, nearly a dozen Haitians stopped in seeking help. One woman asked what her next steps should be after her cousin was detained. Several people arrived with ankle monitors, looking for legal assistance with next steps.\n<\/p>\n As desperate as the situation has become in Springfield, Haitian community members do not want to return to Haiti.<\/p>\n \u201cThey choose the ankle shackles because the whole world, they know going back to Haiti is being placed in a death sentence,\u201d said the support center\u2019s administrative assistant, James Pepitho Fleurijean.<\/p>\n Armed gangs control most of Port-au-Prince and are expanding their reach into neighboring regions. Gang violence in Haiti has resulted<\/a> in over 2,000 deaths in this year alone. \u201cThere are so many people that went back to Haiti, and when they get there, and you know the rest of the story: People have been kidnapped, people have been killed, young ladies have been raped,\u201d Fleurijean said.\n<\/p>\n In his office, Dorsainvil, a former TPS holder who moved to the US from Haiti in 2020, sat at his desk answering a stream of phone calls and messages. He described living in Springfield as being in an \u201copen jail\u201d where every moment is tainted by \u201cpsychological fear.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cHere we live one day at a time,\u201d said Dorsainvil, also an elder at Central Christian Church and a pastor who served in Haiti and Jamaica. \u201cWe just can\u2019t predict what tomorrow will look like. So the day we see is . . . the day we live, and going to bed, asking God to protect us, to guide us, and give us wisdom.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Among pro-immigrant organizers, faith leaders, and volunteers, active Signal and WhatsApp chats have become part of the new normal as they respond to evolving ICE tactics. Springfield Neighbors United, a local nonprofit, has coordinated food and diaper drives, hygiene bags, and rides for Haitians going to immigration court. They\u2019ve teamed up with St. Vincent de Paul, a Catholic nonprofit, to fill out passports for newborns and children who are US citizens. Now, they\u2019re starting a program to support families left behind after a loved one is detained.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI think spiritually and morally, I mean, we have to respond,\u201d said Norm Horstman, who, along with his wife, Lou Ann, is a retired cradle Catholic \u201cin exile\u201d from the church over its stance on LGBTQ+ issues. The couple has been heavily involved with Springfield Neighbors United since 2024. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a choice.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Potential family separation is a major concern. The more than 1,200 US-born Haitian children and infants under age 4 could be separated from detained parents.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the Ohio government awarded the local child welfare department and a Christian nonprofit, the Nehemiah Foundation, a grant to form a respite care network. Tim Voltz, an elder at a multicultural neighborhood church called Champion City that\u2019s roughly 30 percent Haitian, was tapped by the Nehemiah Foundation to recruit families from local churches. Voltz estimated that about 20 vetted families had been equipped to provide short-term childcare until kids could be reunited with family.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have either the possibility of being separated from your children or taking your children back to a country that they\u2019ve never been to, that is violent . . . I don\u2019t know how you make that choice,\u201d said Voltz.<\/p>\n Faith leaders are also responding to the new reality of having parishioners outfitted with ankle monitors. On August 15, Michelle Boomgaard, rector at Christ Episcopal Church, met with one such parishioner to discuss next steps.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t say I\u2019m fine,\u201d the parishioner said, standing in the church vestibule after greeting Boomgaard. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n When Boomgaard asked if his employer knew what was going on, the parishioner, who holds a work permit and whose job involves one-on-one patient care, said while his employer understood, the patients he cares for might not.<\/p>\n \u201cComing with an ankle monitor means . . . being a criminal. I don\u2019t think anybody will be happy to be in a room at a hospital and have a criminal taking care of you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Many volunteers said they are disturbed by the level of hatred aimed at the Haitians as well as those who try to aid them. Several faith leaders said they have had bomb threats at their churches and nonprofit centers. Recent social media videos depicting the Haitians\u2019 suffering are often flooded with vitriolic and racist comments.\n<\/p>\n Springfield\u2019s Haitian population first made headlines during the 2024 presidential election, when Donald Trump and JD Vance spread falsehoods about migrants eating pets. That year, neo-Nazi and White supremacist groups descended on Springfield, distributing racist flyers and staging protests at City Hall and<\/a> in front of the mayor\u2019s home. In an ongoing lawsuit<\/a>, the city of Springfield says the leader of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe took credit on social media for initially spreading those debunked claims about Haitian migrants.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never quite understood how any human being can look at the suffering of another human being and say, \u2018Let\u2019s add to that,\u2019\u201d reflected Boomgaard.<\/p>\n