Bomb threats against city hall. Proud Boys marching. Schools emptied. The residents of Springfield, Ohio are learning firsthand what it means to be caught in the crosshairs of Donald Trump’s dangerous tirades against immigrants in this nation. Long after the headlines have moved onto Trump’s next target, this town will be left to pick up the pieces.
We say “next target” because the Republican presidential nominee’s comments against Haitian immigrants during the September 10 debate were not a one-off, but an inevitable result of the anti-Blackness deeply rooted in our nation’s immigration policies and narratives. Until leaders in both parties step up to reject this racism, we can expect the consequences to continue.
This pernicious history goes back hundreds of years. Although Haiti became an independent nation in 1804, the United States refused to officially recognize Haiti’s independence for nearly another six decades - because white politicians feared the revolution would spread to enslaved Black people in the U.S. But echoes of the past reverberate. In 2021, horrific images surfaced showing border patrol agents on horseback, whips in hand, using excessive force against Haitian families along the Rio Grande.
Trump himself has a long track record of discriminating against Black people in this country, including but not limited to Black immigrants. Decades ago, he systematically denied housing to Black tenants in New York. He called for the execution of five innocent young men of color known as the Central Park Five and has continued peddling birther conspiracies against President Obama. During his presidency, Trump called African and Haitian nations “shithole countries” and instituted Muslim and Africa bans, the effects of which are still felt today.
But racist immigration policies transcend political party. Last year, the Biden administration began requiring people fleeing danger to use the CBP One app to make their asylum appointments – among the app’s many glitches included facial recognition technology that failed to consistently recognize the faces of Black people. In June of this year, Biden placed a harsh and........