I'm taking this personally

When I lived in Boston, before I got shanghaied into academia, I had a consulting business working with community based organizations. Two of my clients were Haitian organizations, that did public health promotion and case management services for people living with HIV, among other programs. Later, when I worked at Latino Health Institute, we collaborated with those agencies and I also did research and wrote a paper with a Haitian-American colleague. Today, I'm again working with a Haitian community leader in Boston. The Haitian-American community in Boston and Somerville goes back at least 30 years, and I believe it is one of the largest in the U.S., after Miami.

So it is actually not new that there are a lot of people of Haitian ethnicity in the U.S. Many are citizens or legal permanent residents. We also have a Temporary Protected Status for many people, which was granted after natural disasters but remains in effect because conditions in the country are simply untenable. There is a long history behind how matters got to this point, but in a nutshell, the nation of Haiti was born in the first successful rebellion of enslaved Africans in the Americas, and the U.S. never forgave them for that.

The Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio, are hard working, law abiding people who have brought the city back to life. Here's what the Republican governor of Ohio has to say about the repeated claims by Donald Trump and H.D. Vance that they are abducting and eating people's pet cats and dogs:

 

There’s a lot of garbage on the internet and, you know, this is a piece of garbage that was simply not true. There’s no evidence of this at all. Let me tell you what we do know, though. What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in. These Haitians came in to work for these companies. What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers. They’re very happy to have them there. And, frankly, that’s helped the economy.

 

Now let me tell you what I think about people who invent disgusting, racist lies to smear an entire community. You know, lies such as Jews kidnap Christian babies to incorporate their blood in Passover matzoh. That sort of thing, that can lead to serious violence. I think people who do that are evil and dangerous and downright terrifying. The idea that anyone would even consider voting for such people for high office is difficult to believe. It proves that there is a profound rot at the heart of our culture. But that's what the Republican party is all about. Moral depravity.