by Ariel Miller
As former President Trump and Ohio Senator Vance drove national headlines by demonizing Springfield’s Haitian community, a bomb threat two days after the presidential debate caused the city to evacuate several government buildings and an elementary school. The rector of Christ Church, Springfield, continues to challenge fear-mongering with facts. She draws on parishioners’ friendships with these new neighbors, as well as fact-finding in the wider community.
“Somehow, my new hometown has gotten a lot of unhelpful attention of late, so let me dispel a few things you might be reading,” wrote the Rev. Michelle Boomgaard, Ph.D., on Facebook hours before the debate. Here are some of the facts she posted:
- “Yes, we have a lot of newly-arrived immigrants from Haiti. Yes, they make up more than one-tenth of the population of Springfield at the moment.
- The overwhelming majority of those immigrants are here legally. In fact, most received permission to enter the US before they even crossed the border.
- Nobody is ‘sending’ us immigrants. Immigrants have the same right to travel freely within the United States as the rest of us.
- I’m not even going to dignify the pet comment. The politician who made it has retracted it. Don’t spread it. Just don’t.”
After years of economic and population decline, Springfield has experienced a boom in manufacturing and warehousing. In the last five years, somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 Haitians eligible to work with Temporary Protected Status have arrived to help fill those jobs.
“Industries are incredibly glad to be hiring,” says Boomgaard. “At one company, the entire third shift is Haitian.” Christ Church is seeking how it can help Haitian newcomers to adapt and contribute to the revival of this rust-belt city.
On the spiritual level, some Christ Church parishioners rapidly recognized the Haitian influx as an opportunity to welcome and include newcomers. In their parish profile for the rector search in 2021, they mentioned that “one new thing that is exciting is the arrival of the Haitians,” Boomgaard says. Having made Haitian friends in other communities, she responded in her cover letter that she would be able to conduct services in French. “Already a few folks from Haiti are worshipping with us,” she reports, though “many are now worshipping in their own congregations. It’s natural to want to be apart in a safe group.”
This is especially true after the furor that arose a year ago when a Haitian driver lost control of his minivan and collided with a school bus, causing the death of 11-year-old Aidan Clark and injuring 23 others. This aroused a storm of unrelated and unsubstantiated allegations which several Ohio politicians have amplified and which former President Trump repeated during his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Harris. In an article about the debate, the Washington Post catalogued the viral spread of the racist memes about Haitians.
That same night, the dead student’s father denounced the political exploitation of his son’s death at the Springfield City Commission meeting, reported Sabrina Eaton in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Nathan Clark said he wished the crash that killed his son, Aiden, had been caused by a 60-year-old white man instead of a Haitian immigrant because then ‘the incessant group of hate spewing people would leave us alone. The last thing we need is to have the worst day of our lives violently and constantly shoved in our faces. But even that’s not good enough for them – they take it one step further. They make it seem as though our wonderful Aiden appreciates your hate…Using Aiden as a political tool, is to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose.'”
Boomgaard attended the commission meeting too as a concerned citizen. “Sometimes rumors persist because there is an information gap,” she says. It helps to have the connections and the facts to combat the rumors.” One is that the Haitians are homeless and squatting: “As of two months ago, there was exactly one Haitian family in a shelter. Lead had been discovered in their house, and they had young children, so they needed to move out temporarily,” Boomgaard adds.
Another is that the Haitians are fueling a crime wave. “I asked a reporter at the city commission meeting, ‘you see the police blotter. Are the Haitians committing crimes?’ The answer was generally not: they are more likely to be the victims of crime. A Haitian food truck was torched less than a month after starting business. Haitians get jumped at ATMs. At a faith leaders’ meeting, I heard that in a break-in, only the Haitian’s tools were stolen, not those of his American partner.”
The other role Christ Church has embraced is to ask the Haitian community and Springfield service providers for ways the parish can contribute to the rapidly-developing web of programs to help Haitians adapt. The big influx of new residents has created challenges exacerbated by the fact that Springfield, unlike some larger cities, has no official refugee resettlement agency to coordinate their integration into new jobs, housing, and schools. Job and Family Services and the health district have scrambled to hire interpreters, and the schools have rapidly scaled up English language programs.
The United States has granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitians fleeing the country’s escalating chaos. People with TPS are legally present, eligible for work permits, and free to go wherever they choose, and they learned of Springfield’s new job opportunities by word of mouth. But recipients do not get the federally-funded orientation and resettlement services accorded to refugees because their status is temporary, based on conditions in their home country.
When she arrived 18 months ago as Christ Church’s new rector, Boomgaard sought out community partners who were mobilizing a response, including a Haitian coalition co-chaired by the head of the Clark County Health District and the United Way. She is also connected with the Haitian Community Service Center, opened by one of the first Haitian churches in Springfield.
She is excited that local faith leaders are coordinating the launch this fall of a program called micro-FESTA, replicated from a successful prototype in Columbus. “It’s a multi-generational language learning program which provides two hours a week of intensive English while there is onsite child care, homework help, and meals,” she explains. “The woman who’s organizing FESTA said that this is beneficial to the entire city, because this is the way we can get together, sit down at tables together, and get to know each other, in a place where all are welcome. Six or seven other organizations are also offering English. Others are teaching Haitians to drive. A bank has special monthly workshops on banking, credit, and the difference between a credit card and a debit card. “
Springfield’s rapid population growth over the last five years “would have been a problem regardless of where they were coming from,” says Boomgaard. “If you had 20,000 new residents arriving from Indianapolis, it would have been a problem. Springfield had been in decline for a few decades. Infrastructure, including affordable housing, had been dwindling.”
But the flip side of this growth in workplaces and workers is the opportunity for Springfield to thrive with economic development and willing, documented workers. “By in large, most of the Haitians work hard to get work permits, and the process is going faster now,” says Boomgaard.
“The one thing I wish people would hear is how much the non-profit, community service, and to some extent the business community have rallied to help them adjust, but that’s not the story that sells and that the media are telling,” says Boomgaard. She with Christ Church and faith leaders across Springfield are stepping up to bear witness.
