Trump and Vance’s Campaign of Racist Terror in Springfield Is Working. By Asawin Suebsaeng

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Trump and Vance’s Campaign of Racist Terror in Springfield Is Working

17 - 21 minutes

September 21, 2024

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO — Before Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and other prominent conservatives started talking about their city, the volunteers and leadership at St. Vincent de Paul — a Catholic social services nonprofit serving the broader community and Haitian immigrants — never felt the need for the state’s Department of Public Safety to visit their welcome center, to brief the staff on emergency and worst-case-scenario protocols.

That all changed earlier this month, according to Casey Rollins, executive director of the Springfield District Council of St. Vincent de Paul. On Thursday, when Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine visited their building, he brought along with him envoys from the public safety department, which is set to return next week to finish discussing the staff’s security measures.

According to Rollins, in recent days, she has had to review emergency and evacuation procedures with staffers, particularly the elderly ones. This month, they’ve started locking the doors during business hours and greeting people when they come in, to make sure they know who they are. They monitor the parking-lot area more diligently than they have before. And now, the local police department tells Rollins to call them whenever she or her fellow volunteers notice something amiss. The detectives have urged her to call immediately, even when Rollins thinks it’s probably nothing.

It didn’t have to be this way — but, former President Trump and his running mate, Ohio’s junior senator, gave voice to a baseless, racist lie about the small city’s growing Haitian immigrant community stealing and eating pet dogs and cats, and made it a centerpiece of their campaign during the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election. In the aftermath, Rollins says that she and her fellow Vincentians have had to take new security precautions and have uncomfortable conversations that they once never expected to have.

When Rolling Stone visited their offices early this week, the first thing this reporter saw was a long line of predominantly Haitian immigrants, young families, and small children lining the waiting room, as other Haitian volunteers and translators working with St. Vincent de Paul assisted them in filling out employment paperwork and other English-language documents. 

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“With everything going on right now, with everything being said, how can you not worry that someone with bad intentions might have less than honorable intentions?” Rollins says, fighting back tears.

Further, Rollins says they are dealing with a barrage of “menacing” messages and enraged phone calls from strangers blaming their nonprofit for helping the documented immigrants and Haitians who are “taking over” Springfield. She stresses, though, that the outbreaks of hatred and bitterness have been more than balanced by an outpouring of generosity and compassion, with donations and shows of solidarity flooding their offices — and “not just for Haitians, but for all of the community in Springfield. It’s been absolutely amazing.” It’s a level of support, amid a backdrop of politicized wrath, that she says moves her to tears “more often than the sad stuff does.”

Still, she mentions that some longtime volunteers have stopped coming altogether, because the deluge of hate and threats has been too much to handle. Recently, she says, she was startled when a package showed up in front of her house, and was relieved only after hearing from her husband that he, in fact, was expecting a box in the mail. Some in the community have shoveled blame and ire on Catholic ministries for the influx of Haitians, with one person messaging Rollins a photo of a nasty flier they’d spotted in town. The image trashed “SOUTHWESTERN [OHIO] CATHOLIC CHARITIES” for “WELCOMING 20,000 IMMIGRANTS TO YOUR DOORSTEP!” The graphic identified three men, for angry readers to jeer at, and also featured a dead dog being served on a plate.

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Rollins did, however, mention that — for all the state and national politicians targeting the town’s Haitian population — there were two politicians who stood out as substantively assisting and collaborating with her group and their efforts behind the scenes: Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and DeWine.

“This welcome center is now like a safe haven,” says John Ceddia, president for St. Vincent de Paul Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s council. He was in Springfield this week to lend his support to the local Vincentians. “It was not what I expected to see on Monday when I went up there, but driving home last night [on Thursday], I was just smiling. Because I was so surprised at how peaceful that building was with the Haitian community… who are trying to find work, and be part of the community… One [Haitian] fellow I spoke with for about an hour this week, I asked him if his community felt at ease. He said: ‘No. We have to follow our kids to and from school. We are looking forward to the day when we don’t have to do that.’ And that hit me right between the eyes.”

On Tuesday, at the entrance of the St. Vincent de Paul free food pantry, a bespectacled 95-year-old woman named Gladys Schneeburger was at the front desk, smiling and sitting in front of the landline and desktop computer. Her fellow Vincentians call her “the gatekeeper.” Rolling Stone asked her why — given everything going on in the city and the additional, serious security concerns — she continued doing the highly visible work she was doing. “Oh, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else… no matter what,” she said. “This is something I need to do.”

The center and adjoining food pantry, rooms dedicated to aiding the poor and freely welcoming the stranger, now have to be more careful about who they let in. Nowadays, Rollins regularly calls the local detectives about suspicious behavior around the welcome center, fearing that some people may stop by to harass or “troll” Haitian families. 

On Tuesday, Rolling Stone’s initial sit-down interview with Rollins was interrupted when another Vincentian knocked on her door to tell her “he’s back,” referring to one such recurring character. Rollins leapt up from her chair, and immediately dialed the cell of a Springfield police officer, who showed up within minutes. (He was used to this ritual by now.) Later on in our interview, Rollins could barely hide her disgust when she saw a new message appear on her smartphone, stating that the week’s Haitian Coalition meeting would now be “VIRTUAL ONLY,” due to the wave of bomb threats and safety concerns that have throttled the small Ohio city this month and hurled it into the national spotlight.

The Haitian Coalition is hardly alone. 

In the wake of Trump, Vance, and conservatives waging a campaign of demagoguery on Springfield’s thousands of new Haitian arrivals, schools and other buildings had to be evacuated. State troopers were called in by the conservative governor, in an attempt to restore a sense of calm and normalcy. And as of Thursday, the Republican mayor of Springfield assumed temporary emergency powers in order to “mitigate public safety concerns.” DeWine and the mayor have been publicly clear that they do not condone what Team Trump is doing.

To describe Rollins as disturbed by what was happening — to her neighbors, her friends, her staff — would be a massive understatement.

“We have to be apolitical in what we do,” she says. “But when you spend all week advocating for the poor, helping our new neighbors, welcoming these people who want to be accepted in America, it is hard for that to not be read as political… because politicians and people in the media make it political… Our whole ministry is about caring for all people. We try to stay out of politics, we must avoid that. But at the same time, we are being voices for the poor, which is advocacy that sometimes looks like politics. But we are just here to help.”

Asked what she would say to Vance, Rollins answers: “You publicly reminisce about personally rising out of a world of marginalization and impoverishment. You remind us that you are the son of Ohio, representing all of the people of Ohio. You share that your Catholicism is important in guiding your life and your morality. Since Catholic social teaching emphasizes our moral imperative to ‘welcome the stranger,’ how are you effectively representing all of Ohio regarding Haitian immigrants? The world has now witnessed the anger and rebellion of many Ohioans and the contagion spreading around the country. Conversely, the world has realized the moral outrage, the outcries of acceptance, and the worldwide outreach and advocacy toward our Haitian neighbors.”

She added: “But you admittedly continue to encourage untruths and to provoke hatred among us all; politically posturing, and pawning Springfield for political gain. It is hurting all of Ohio, the nation, and our world; not just Springfield and the Haitians who are here with us. I wonder how that makes anyone in Springfield safer or more stable than we were yesterday?”

There is little chance such pleas will sway the likes of Vance and Trump. In recent days, the 2024 GOP presidential and vice presidential nominees have continued to make Springfield and the Haitians living there a topic on the campaign trail, using it in their broader pitch to voters on their hyper-draconian, nativist immigration policy platform. According to two sources familiar with the matter, they have no plans to let up, and no intentions of apologizing for what they’ve done, even in terms of collateral damage, to the city and its people. Team Trump wants to keep picking this fight, and battles in other cities and American towns like it, between now and Election Day, the sources note, because they believe this is a surefire political winner for them. 

“What it is is: Imagine if this explosion of migrants or illegals happened on your block, in your neighborhood? You don’t have a clearer real-world example of the consequences of these Biden-Harris immigration policies, and most voters do not want that to happen where they live and send their kids to school,” says a Trump adviser who has recently discussed the issue with the former president.

The Haitians who Trump and various elected Republicans are constantly demagoguing nowadays are, in fact, here legally.

Throughout the week, as this Rolling Stone reporter (who, full disclosure, is himself a Vincentian in the Cincinnati area) spent time in Springfield and the surrounding suburbs, one of the more recognizable aspects of the struggling Midwestern city is just how neatly it fits the bill of a town of so-called, predominantly white “forgotten men and women” — the kind of voters and disaffected non-voters who Trump and his ilk routinely claim to speak for, but rarely if ever aid financially. 

It is a small piece of the Buckeye State, a comfortably red and Trumpy spot on the Electoral College map, that’s been long primed for Trump and his party to tear apart — an ideal place to pit working-class and poor residents against one another on demographic lines. And at the tail end of Trump’s presidential race against Vice President Kamala Harris, the party and conservative movement have wasted absolutely no time doing so.

The steep growth of the city’s population — driven by Haitian immigrants, many on a federal program of Temporary Protected Status and seeking work — has sparked a political and local backlash of resentment and fury. In the past, the city had publicly welcomed immigrants, as had business owners, as they desperately sought more workers. In the time since, high-profile incidents have further inflamed hostilities; in 2023, a Haitian driver collided with a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy. This month, Nathan Clark — the father of the deceased child, Aiden — publicly denounced Trump, Vance, and other Republicans as “morally bankrupt” for “using Aiden as a political tool,” and begged them to stop spreading hate.

But as the city became inundated with what Trump and his lieutenants had unleashed, Republicans have sought to subtly tweak their PR strategies.

Even Vance now claims he blames President Joe Biden, Harris, and federal policymakers — and not the Haitians who have come here for a better life — despite the fact he and Trump spent much of the past month targeting, blaming, and brazenly lying about the Haitians. 

On Thursday, MAGAfied businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, a former 2024 GOP presidential candidate who is now a Trump surrogate, visited Springfield for a round of meetings and to host a campaign-style town hall with residents and others. Throughout the day, Ramaswamy repeatedly stressed the talking point that he doesn’t “actually blame” the city’s Haitian community, stressing: “I blame the federal policies.” And as Trump’s trusted ally tried to slap a kinder, gentler face on the MAGA movement’s relentless barrage against the city’s immigrants, he repeatedly chastised the news media for hyper-fixating on the “cats and dogs” fodder, and not Springfield’s long-standing problems. 

It was obvious that Ramaswamy was playing a mug’s game, trying to shift the blame for the national hysteria away from Trump and Vance, even though they started it.

Ultimately, Ramaswamy wasn’t there to save Springfield, but to boost someone else. After a stretch of taking audience questions on Thursday night at the Bushnell Event Center in downtown Springfield, Ramaswamy declared, to enthusiastic applause: “We have to put Donald Trump back in the White House.”

At least for now, there is another thing that can be said, sadly, about Trump and Vance’s blitz of panic and terror in the heart of Springfield: It appears, on some meaningful, horrifying levels, to be working. Trump has publicly stated that, if he wins another term in the White House in this year’s presidential contest, he would want to start a mass-deportation operation in Springfield, aimed at gutting the legally documented Haitian population in the city. To Trump and his increasingly authoritarian-minded government-in-waiting, their vision and current behavior towards Springfield is a preview of what they have in store for the nation as a whole, should they return to power in January.

Trump isn’t the president, but his campaign-trail propaganda has already had his preferred effect of menacing the immigrant community and making some of their families think twice about remaining in Springfield.

Though there is a palpable sense of resilience and compassion among so many Haitians who now call Clark County their home, there is also far too much grief and trauma — the effects of which won’t vanish any time soon. 

Several Haitian families in the city who Rolling Stone approached for this story did not want to be named or even quoted anonymously, citing fear for their families. Some said they didn’t even like leaving their homes anymore. 

At Keket Bongou — a Haitian-operated Caribbean restaurant near a school and an Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles location that were both recently evacuated due to the anonymous threats — Rolling Stone met Kettlie Moise, the owner who says she has been in the United States for six years. (The food, for whatever it’s worth, is delicious, per Rolling Stone’s assessment.) She says in a brief interview that as of Tuesday, two of her Haitian employees — half her staff — are no longer coming to work, as “they’re scared… They don’t show up.”

She adds that the restaurant has lately gotten its share of unpleasant phone calls and trolls, including random callers doing things like asking if they have dog or cat on the menu. But more grimly, Moise notes that there has been a noticeable drop-off in Haitian customers. 

“They’re scared,” she continues, visibly upset. “I don’t feel good. I have to pay rent… Haitians are scared. They don’t come to eat. I feel bad… I used to feel welcome and happy [in Springfield], but now… it’s not the same.”

Asked if she ever expected it to be like this in America, or in Springfield, Ohio, for her and her Haitian friends, she simply says: “No, no… No.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Keket was so short-staffed that the person who brought this Rolling Stone reporter the chicken dish he ordered wasn’t even a server, but one of Moise’s friends — a woman named Mia Perez, an immigration lawyer of Cuban-Haitian background.

Perez recounted how she had heard, via their large support network in the area, from a number of Haitian families and individuals who were actively weighing leaving Springfield at this point, afraid that violence could erupt if tensions remain as high as they are. At least one Haitian family, Perez says, has already left — maybe for good — and is seeking a new home elsewhere in Ohio.

“They do not feel safe here anymore, but they love Ohio so much, they don’t want to leave,” Perez says. 

But to Perez, some of this is also intensely personal. 

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Over lunch, she talks about her own Haitian daughter, who was confused about why she and her fellow students had to be evacuated from school recently. Her daughter asked her mother if this had anything to do with school shootings, specifically one that had occurred in Georgia early this month. 

Perez assured her daughter that there was no threat of a school shooter. She had to explain to her child she was being evacuated due to bomb threats that had rained down on their city — and that the threats began flowing after powerful men decided to launch a racist campaign of lies against Haitians just like her.

“But I told her you have to be proud,” Perez stresses. “You have to be proud about who you are, and where we come from. You can’t let anybody — anybody — stop you from doing that.”