Haitian immigrants in US live in fear amid bomb threats, conspiracy theories

Bomb threats are being called into schools and businesses are closing at sundown in Springfield, Ohio, after the small US town  became the center of conspiracy theories targeting its Haitian immigrant community -- leaving some in fear for their lives.

The mostly white city in the American Midwest has seen a boom in population in recent years, fueled mostly by Haitians attracted by its economic revival, and new businesses happy to attract laborers.

But after fleeing gang violence in Haiti, many newcomers are now worried they could be victims of hate crimes here as Republicans stir tensions over the influx of Black foreigners during a heated political campaign season.

"Some of them want to leave (town), some have already left," said Romane Pierre, manager of the Rose Goute Haitian restaurant. He closed early, around 8:00 pm, on Thursday, worried about his staff having to walk home late at night.

What started as municipal growing pains in a rapidly growing city have morphed into allegations of an "invasion" by "illegal" newcomers, baselessly accused of stealing and eating people's pets and causing a crime wave.

Since Republican White House candidate Donald Trump declared "they're eating dogs" at Tuesday's presidential debate, tensions have only increased.

A bomb threat Thursday closed city hall and a local public school attended by many Haitian children.

Schools were evacuated for a second day Friday, and the FBI investigated threatening calls telling a Haitian community center to "fucking leave," the center’s executive director told AFP.

"It's a sad reality, putting people in panic," said Viles Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center.

"We are trying to help them to understand what has happened is just because of a political agenda."

- Too much of a good thing? -

In many ways, Springfield's growing population was a success -- and one specifically sought out by the city, which previously had a declining population typical of the post-industrial heartland.

City officials pushed an economic plan to attract new businesses, and it worked -- perhaps too well, attracting some 10-15,000 Haitians to a town that had a population of under 60,000 in 2020.

The growth has stressed the already tight housing market, emergency services, and the health and school systems -- real problems, said Wes Babian, former pastor at the First Baptist church.

And the jobs revival has not translated into fixing systemic problems such as longstanding local poverty.

But Babian denounced what he said were growing "racial overtones" in residents' complaints.

"There's been a lot of controversy over the last year or so with regard to the new neighbors," said Babian. "Certainly understandable in some respects, but it's migrated to a much more negative, even dangerous level at some points."

Many of the Haitans in Springfield have some sort of legal or protected status. Some have lived in the United States for years.

But they have been accused of being bused into the town by the federal government, or living grandly off public benefits while the local population languishes.

In reality, some Haitians arrived with their own funds and started businesses, like Philomene Philostin, a naturalized US citizen who owns a grocery store stocked with Haitian staples such as djon-djon seasoning and dried lalo leaves.

Others are barely scraping by, such as Fritz.

He arrived at the US-Mexican border five months ago, and was given an appointment to cross and seek asylum. He receives food assistance, but nothing he can use to pay rent -- which he hopes to turn around after finding a night shift job at a food services company.

"But they haven't paid me yet," he said, and the housing situation for him, his two-year-old son and pregnant wife, at a friend's house, is precarious.

As he spoke to AFP downtown across from the evacuated city hall, a car drove by, with its occupants yelling out, "Fuck you!"

- 'I've got my weapons' -

Since the presidential debate, Daniel, a Haitian who has lived in Springfield for four years under a legal protection called Temporary Protected Status, has stopped leaving his house unless it's completely necessary.

But he insists the people spreading the hateful rhetoric are in the minority.

"The threat is real," he said. But "it's not the entire community."

Others are on his side.

Sitting on his front porch, an American flag fluttering in the twilight, Vietnam War veteran WIlliam Thompson declares "it's the land of the free... They got an opportunity to come be free."

And if, like so many fear, things spiral into violence, "I've got my weapons inside the house," he laughed.