The city has recently been plagued with bomb threats at local schools, government buildings, hospitals and stores after tons of people on social media, including former President Donald Trump and his running mate U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, amplified those false claims of pets being eaten.
Law enforcement and city officials have said there is zero evidence to back these claims.
“What’s going on here doesn’t just hurt Haitians, it hurts all of Springfield. It hurts Ohio. It hurts America,” said Barber, who is president of Repairers of the Breach, an interfaith advocacy group based in North Carolina. Barber is also the founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.
“When I shared with some people the invitation that had come through clergy to come here to pray and to speak and to stand, I had people contact me and say, ‘Be safe. Don’t go. It’s dangerous,’ ” Barber said.
“No one should be told not to come to an American city because of fear of harm,” he said.
Springfield is home to 12,000 to 15,000 people who have migrated from Haiti, according to Springfield officials. Religious leaders of Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths advocated on their behalf during Sunday’s prayer vigil.
Barber asked those in attendance to sign a joint letter that his group, Repairers of the Breach, plans to send to Trump and Vance, asking them to “cease and desist” and to stop repeating false claims.
Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz of Temple Israel in Dayton said she felt a responsibility to advocate for local Haitian people.
“I stand here today because, as a Jew, my faith demands that of me. It is our responsibility to speak out against the xenophobic lies and misconceptions that are threatening our neighbors,” Bodney-Halasz said.
“When fear and prejudice dictate our actions toward others, we fragment our world further, moving further and further from the world that is meant to be,” she said.
Numerous religious leaders repeatedly emphasized the passages in their religion’s sacred texts that said their followers should be welcoming of strangers and foreigners.
“In the Torah, the five books of Moses, we are commanded to protect, guard and love the stranger no less than 36 times, because this is not simply a suggestion. It is a moral obligation rooted in empathy and shared history,” Bodney-Halasz said.
“Jesus said nations ― that includes Ohio, that includes this country, that includes anybody trying to lead this country ― will be judged by this question. When I was a stranger, when I was an immigrant, when I was a foreigner, did you welcome me?” Barber said.
“The teaching of Islam tells me that I have to be good to my neighbor, that I have to be good to the Haitian community and to be good to the immigrants, just like I am,” said Imam Youssef Elzein, who said he spoke on behalf of the 20,000-plus Muslims living in the Miami Valley.
“I came to this country 40 years ago, and I went through what many of my brothers and sisters in the Haitian community are going through today,” Elzein said.
He described prejudice as being like a “menu” that people open and “they decide what’s next,” he said.
“What nationality is next? It was the Muslims back in 2016. It was the Hispanics back in 2016, and now the flavor is the Haitian community,” Elzein said.
Local Haitian people shared in the event, singing along with religious songs and later singing the national anthem of Haiti.
“Haitian people don’t eat pets,” said Dernio Desauguste, a Haitian local from Dayton. “... When you don’t know me, don’t talk about me.”
Haitian people want to work for a better life, he said.
“All over the place, they talk about Haitian people ... we are not coming here to eat pets. We are coming here to save our lives and work in the United States,” Desauguste said.
Reporting by the Springfield News-Sun has documented that the influx of Haitian immigrants picked up during the pandemic, when local employers were desperate for workers. Companies saw an opportunity to tap into Haitian communities in other parts of the country — many in those communities were legally in the U.S. and had work permits — to fill that gap.
Longtime residents of the Springfield community have since expressed concern about the difficulty institutions like schools and hospitals have had in accommodating the influx of Haitian migrants, saying they did not have the infrastructure in place. Two new health clinics will open in Springfield, open to all residents, to address increased wait times and other health concerns related to the increased population of Haitian immigrants, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently announced.
At the end of the prayer vigil, the crowd repeatedly chanted “Vote.”
“We don’t tell you who to vote for, but we do tell you to vote,” Barber said.
Staff members Lynn Hulsey, Jessica Orozco and Josh Sweigart contributed to this report.
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