Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump proclaimed during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating dogs and cats. Since then, Trump and his vice presidential running mate JD Vance have continued to spread racist lies about Haitians in Springfield. White nationalists had already shown up in Springfield in response to the internet rumors about pet eating sparked by Trump’s comments during the debate; in recent weeks, the city has received numerous bomb threats, and its Haitian residents have been the target of verbal harassment and intimidation. Trump has said he plans to visit Springfield, although Ohio’s Republican governor and Springfield’s Republican mayor have publicly refuted Trump and Vance’s false stories and said the Haitian community should be welcomed.
I recently spoke by phone with Viles Dorsainvil, a Haitian community leader. He runs the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, a nonprofit organization founded last year. Dorsainvil, who is 38, was born in Haiti and moved to Springfield in 2021. Our conversation, condensed and made more understandable, is below. In it, we talk about what life has been like for Haitians in Springfield over the past few weeks, his own journey to America and to Springfield, and how he tries to understand why people have demonized his community.
Was it your first time in America when you came to Springfield? Or have you been here for a while?
I have been traveling to America since 2013 on a B-1 and B-2 visa. I never planned to stay here. I came here sometimes to attend conferences or church activities, but I never planned to stay in America.
Are you a citizen now?
I am not a citizen. I have temporary protection status. (This residency permit, which allows people from countries affected by natural or other disasters to stay in the United States, has been extended by the Biden administration until 2026 for hundreds of thousands of Haitians who were already here.)
Can you tell me a little about what the last few weeks have been like for you and your community?
Overwhelming, shocking, sad. All of this causes so much fear and anxiety. You asked me what the experience was like. I have seen America at its worst in terms of how a leader can denigrate, marginalize or divide a community through his speech and harm a vulnerable group of people by inciting his base for his own political goals.
That’s what I’ve experienced. But at the same time, I’ve experienced the best parts of America, where there is solidarity and love. Last Sunday, when I was doing English class with some Haitian students, some Americans from the community came with candy and flowers, and some children brought drawings with words of love and encouragement. People said, “We love you. We welcome you here. We stand with you.”
What class was that?
We’re running a class at the community center – a class where Haitians learn English. The American children from the community who came were here with their parents and they weren’t afraid to hug the Haitian students, shake their hands and smile at them. The students were so happy.
So while I’ve seen the worst of America through the bad rhetoric, I also see the beauty in it. I see the solidarity. People have come from miles around to show us their love – and the calls and the support they’ve given us. And the money. Oh, my goodness.
So you get donations?
Yes. We have received some donations to continue our programs.
But people in your community have been threatened? What can you say about that?
Yeah, and that’s the worst America has to offer. The threats are both verbal and texted, and people are calling us the F-word and telling us to leave and so on and so forth. We’re still dealing with that this week, and some Haitians have just decided to leave. They don’t think they’re safe in this community. For example, today we were giving an interview to a reporter, and a guy just drove a big truck into the churchyard and honked his horn so loudly at us. I mean, you can see these guys are prepared to be violent. The way he drove in the churchyard, I was afraid he was going to hit somebody. Thank God the service was over.
Did such incidents occur frequently?
Yes, we have so many Haitians who have found papers from the Ku Klux Klan or some other white supremacist group on their car windows, all swear words telling them that if they don’t leave, things are going to get bad. All of these things. Everything feels very dangerous. And we have people whose homes have been vandalized, whose windows have been smashed and everything. As I told you, this rhetoric from leaders can cause so much chaos in our community.
What was the reaction when you first arrived in Springfield almost four years ago?
It was a peaceful community where everyone went about their own business, went to work and things like that. But when the Haitians arrived, some of the citizens were worried. The worst part was that in 2020, many Americans were receiving free welfare, whether it was cash or food assistance. It was free for them during COVID-19. But in 2023 and 2024, Americans had to sign up for programs again and they were no longer free. Now they believe that the government took the money from them to give it to the Haitians. This is where tensions started to rise against the Haitians and people said that the government gave cash to the Haitians, which was a false claim. Some people don’t understand that sometime after COVIDthe services they used to get for free would be stopped. But instead of looking for the truth, they just thought that the services that were being taken away from them would now go to us Haitians. And they started to hate us. People started to treat us badly.
And these people are in Springfield?
Yes, these are some locals.
Why did you come to Springfield? What was your specific—
What you have to understand, Isaac, is that so many Haitians didn’t come to Springfield because they wanted to go there. They came because of the political unrest in Haiti. If you read international magazines or articles, you know that Haiti is not an easy country with all the kidnappings, the insecurity and so on and so forth.
I have some understanding of it. I’m not an expert on Haiti at all, but what I was interested in was why Springfield.
Yes, well, usually they came to Springfield because they were looking for a place to get a job, and at that point, Springfield seemed like the right place for them.
I assume that business groups in Springfield wanted more residents because they needed more people to fill the jobs there.
I’m not sure about that, because in my experience, I came to Springfield through word of mouth from my nephew. And I brought two of my little brothers here because I told them to come here. I don’t know how much of that is true as far as employers bringing employees to Springfield or anything like that. What I do know is that people came to Springfield purely through word of mouth. That’s what I know. That’s the reality for me, for people I know. So I don’t know if what you said earlier is correct, or if there’s somebody else who can verify the accuracy for you.
