Ok, Let's Talk About Haitian Immigrants

While Trump Spews Lies, Adults In The Room Need To Clean Up The Mess

Ok, let’s talk about Haitians. The latest “memegasm” is about Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio, stealing and eating the pets of homeowners there. No fear; Trump is to the rescue. If you haven’t seen a social media post about protecting cats and marking yourself safe from your pets being eaten, you have missed one of the greatest campaign conspiracies and falsehoods of all time.

It is being spread by an increasingly desperate and laughable Republican campaign. The Republican vice-presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, shared the conspiracy theory on X a couple of weeks ago, accusing Haitian immigrants of being in the U.S. illegally, “draining social services,” and “generally causing chaos.” And to stoke the fear even further, he repeated the claim that these immigrants are stealing your cats and dogs for food.

Trump was happy to repeat the lie during the debate with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. By repeating the racist trope about Haitians, Trump revealed his true self. He is a vile, immature, and unscrupulous person who will say or do anything to win an election that will keep him out of jail. His performance at the debate would have been funny if the stakes weren’t so high.

A simple fact-check shows how ridiculous the accusation is. According to the local newspaper, the Springfield News-Sun, there have been no police reports of any pets being killed and eaten, and the conspiracy seems to have originated from a Facebook post that didn’t contain any evidence. But truth and facts never impose themselves on the delusional bubble that Trump has created for himself. 

The accusation about Haitians came right out of Trump’s playbook from 2016…demonize and dehumanize immigrants and blame them for all the problems in the United States. It is laced with the poison of fear and anger at the “other,” which is designed to outrage the base and get them out to vote. The lack of evidence is of no consequence to a delusional Donald Trump, who was lost and confused in a barrage of accusations from the prosecutorial Harris during the debate.

A weak and feeble Trump showed his cards by never looking at Harris during the debate. He was clearly afraid of her. On the other hand, she seamlessly moved from looking directly at Trump, even pointing at him while calling out his disgraces, and moving back to the camera when talking about her plans to help the middle class. It was a master class in debating.

But this foolishness about Haitian migrants and refugees begs another question beyond Trump’s cognitive decline. Why target Haitians? What is it about Haitian refugees that made them such fodder for foolish conspiracy theories? The answer is white supremacist racism.

Let’s consider the historical context that will help shed some light on this current conspiracy. After all, Trump’s delusional tirade, seen by 67 million viewers, has created an environment where physical harm, loss of jobs, criminalization, and negative mental health outcomes have impacted Haitian and other Black immigrants across the U.S. But this is not new.

Haiti represents the empowerment of enslaved Blacks in the Western Hemisphere to break free of their chains. Willie Mack, a professor at the University of Missouri, points out that enslaved Haitians led a rebellion in 1791 against the French and won their freedom. American slaveholders were shocked and feared they would invade and free enslaved Africans in the U.S.

In 1822, South Carolina passed a law that prohibited Black Haitian sailors from disembarking from ships that docked in the state’s ports out of fear that they would mingle with enslaved people and spread the word about Haiti, perhaps sparking another rebellion.

“Haiti has always been feared within the imagination of the United States — there’s always been this fear of ‘the Black Republic,’” Mack said.

The United States refused to recognize Haiti as a country for sixty years. Trade policies, military occupations, and the US role in Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s removal from Haiti are little known by Americans but significant for the development, or rather, lack of development in Haiti.

Because of U.S. policy, Haiti today is the poorest country in the region, worse than many poor countries on the continent of Africa. Even the so-called “foreign aid” sent to Haiti from the United States served only to benefit the US, not the Haitians.

For example, NGOs have been working throughout Haiti for decades, many with good intentions. But most of them worked outside the weakened Haitian government, thereby undercutting confidence in it. This led to less and less support for local government.

Then there is food aid. The U.S. federal government heavily subsidized this food aid to benefit American farmers. US food flooded the Haitian markets, driving domestic farm prices down. This, along with environmental degradation, has forced many Haitian farmers to give up their farms and move to Port-au-Prince and its surrounding slums.

The result is rising crime, rising poverty, and rising desperation. It is yet another case of the United States contributing to a problem in a nearby country, blaming the nationals themselves for it, and resenting when the only option seems to be migrating to the US.

U.S. authorities encountered Haitians at the U.S.-Mexico border approximately 53,900 times in fiscal year (FY) 2022 and more than 76,100 times in FY 2023. From 2019 through 2021, Haitians were the top nationality for migrants crossing the dangerous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama, and they remained among the three largest groups in 2022 and 2023. (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/haitian-immigrants-united-states-2022)

Those coming to the United States face major challenges. Learning English, gaining an education, and finding employment are difficult for many. Haitians generally have lower incomes than other groups of immigrants, with an average of around $64,000 a year (for a family). Compared to life in Haiti, however, this level of income seems like hitting the proverbial jackpot.

Despite these challenges, Haitian migrants, both legal and illegal, are not the source of crime in the United States. Don’t buy the lie that the Trump campaign is peddling. Look at this chart from the Cato Institute:

The incarceration rates are represented as a rate per every 100,000 people in each subpopulation for the age range 18–54. Native-born Americans have an incarceration rate of 3.5 times higher than that of all Haitian immigrants. Haitian illegal immigrants have an incarceration rate of 38 percent below native-born Americans, while legal Haitian immigrants have an incarceration rate of about 81 percent below native-born Americans.

Unfortunately, those Americans who frequent conservative fake news channels like FOX will hear stories about crimes committed by Haitian migrants. There was one in New York recently. But the reality is that despite one or two exceptions, Haitian refugees are law-abiding people who are looking for new opportunities and a chance to succeed, just as our “white” ancestors did.

Demonizing and dehumanizing them does nothing to improve their lives or the situation in Haiti itself. Having contributed to and caused many of the problems that Haiti faces, the US is responsible for providing a pathway for solutions. We made the mess, we need to clean it up.

The legal director for the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, Blaine Booky made this insightful comment:

“Haitians escaping violence and persecution should be welcomed with compassion, never punished or returned to the very horrors they have fled. The U.S. government has a legal and moral obligation to ensure meaningful access to a fair asylum process, whether Haitians are arriving at our borders by land or sea. The Biden administration must immediately suspend all deportation flights and at-sea repatriations and redesignate TPS to keep our Haitian immigrant communities safe.”

“The United States has a unique responsibility to Haitian refugees, as centuries of destructive U.S. interference have contributed to the very conditions forcing people to flee Haiti in the first place. Our government’s backing of Prime Minister Ariel Henry marked the latest in a long history of failed U.S. interventions crushing democracy and deepening political and economic insecurity in Haiti. The Biden administration took a step in the right direction in calling for Henry's resignation. It now must not undermine Haitian-led efforts at democracy by forcibly returning people to a country that cannot safely receive them.”

I was always taught that when I made a mess, I was responsible for fixing it and cleaning it up. I was chastised and disciplined when I tried to blame someone else for my messes. I’ve tried to teach my own children the same message.

It is time for the childish and selfish Trump-Vance team to begin to offer solutions to help Haitians and not cast more fear, doubt, and falsehoods against them. I doubt we’ll see that, but we can help foster a solution by voting for the adults in the room in November.