On Monday, February 2, 2026, Bishop White joined with other faith leaders from across the state in calling for an extension of Temporary Protected Status for our Haitian neighbors and for a stop to the planned insurgence of ICE activity as the TPS status is set to expire. She calls for compassion, justice, and for our communities to remember Jesus’ clear call to love our neighbors, immigrant and non-immigrant like.
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Here We Stand: Faith Leaders for Immigrant Justice and Family Unity.
Photos by Emily Joyce (Christ Church, Dayton).
My name is Kristin Uffelman White. I serve as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. As bishop, I hold pastoral responsibility for 70 congregations in the southern part of this state, including Christ Church, Springfield, just a short distance from here. Our congregations in this diocese both include and serve immigrants from Haiti who have made their lives here, who have helped to build the communities in which they live.
As a disciple of Jesus, and as a leader of other disciples, I look to scripture for guidance in this moment. The passage that stands out to me here and now comes from Mark’s Gospel. When the scribes ask Jesus which commandment is the greatest, he tells them: “‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The people who moved here from Haiti came here because their homes were destroyed in the earthquake of 2010, or because they were fleeing corruption and violence, or because they wanted to offer their children the opportunity for a better life.
Friends, the people who moved here from Haiti are our neighbors. They are our friends. They are our coworkers, our peers, our family. They have made their lives here. They found jobs and opened businesses. They have made homes here, and raised their children, and – yes – found churches, and built community.
They are our neighbors. Their presence as immigrants here in this country—ourself a nation of immigrants—makes us more fully who we are.
And Jesus’ Great Commandment calls us to love them, love them as Jesus loves them—wholly and selflessly.
In 2014, this community established the “Welcome Springfield” initiative, to bring immigrants here as a way of revitalizing a city that had seen decades of decline. And it worked. There are 15,000 Haitian neighbors living here now. They make up a quarter of the population. Their work makes a difference right here, in manufacturing and food processing, in healthcare and child care.
Ending TPS (Temporary Protected Status) will disrupt and devastate the progress begun. It will remove the neighbors we depend on. It will hurt local schools and businesses…and, yes, it will hurt churches. It will hurt us being who we are called to be; living God’s Great Commandment to love our Haitian immigrant neighbors as we love ourselves means ensuring the same dignity for them that we offer ourselves and all our neighbors—immigrants and non-immigrants alike.
And that is why I call on our government funded by our tax dollars, elected for office by the will of the people, to extend the protected status that allows our neighbors to continue living the lives they have made here.
Protecting these neighbors, these families, protects us all.
“Jesus says, The first command is this, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Jesus calls us to love our immigrant neighbors. Jesus calls us to protect our immigrant neighbors. Jesus calls us to stand with our immigrant neighbors.
Together, we are doing this. What a blessing to join together with you.
