Rick Lee James updates on roughly 10-15 thousand Haitians in Springfield, Ohio under Temporary Protected Status. The community has tripled the city's birth rate and staffs hospitals and churches, but faces bomb threats and ICE raid fears. James urges prayer and Christian solidarity with the refugees.
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Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so very glad that you're here with me again this week. This podcast was originally going to be an interview, and that interview has been moved back a week because my fault. I did not charge my laptop computer enough for the interview that I was going to have last week, which is about something new and wonderful which I just received in the mail called the Simple Hymnal. So look forward to that next week. We're going to be recording the episode this week, the interview with the creator of the Simple Hymnal, and I'm really glad to be able to share about it with you. But I thought what I'd do this week, since it kind of fell through— this has been a bit of an eventful week— and I thought maybe I'd catch some of you up who don't live in Springfield, Ohio, where I live, because we are potentially, uh, in a place where we're going to be in the national news again because let me just describe what happened here. We are a community of people where we have welcomed in for the— well, I say welcomed in, I think most of us have, many of us have, many Haitian refugees, people who are here on temporary protective status, and they have been really a wonderful I say addition to our community in many ways. We see them at church on Sunday, and I work with them day after day, and they are beautiful people. They work incredibly hard. Most of them that I speak with— I'm not sure I've met one yet who is not a professing Christian and who does not have a very deep faith, even when I speak with interpreters. So we have, I think, by last estimate, roughly 10,000 to 15,000 Haitians who came here because their country is unsafe. You hear their stories, they're heartbreaking. And I want to make it clear, they really do want to go back home to Haiti. It is their home. Um, they came here, many of them running for their lives. There was no other option for them. They did it the right way. When we talk about people who immigrate doing it the right way, they are not permanent residents, but they did follow all the laws to be here. Part of the way that they get to stay here is by working jobs, paying taxes, following the laws, checking in whenever they're supposed to, and following all of the rules of the Temporary Protective Status. And things have not gotten better in Haiti. I know there was a particular judge that said they were, and that's why they removed the protective status. But it's just not true. Things have gotten worse. I actually just— in many ways worse than when they were before, unfortunately. I was just speaking with someone this morning who lives here who just came back from a mission trip to Haiti where they took medicine and food and water and helped to rebuild the villages and places that have been torn apart by gang activity. And they said it was heartbreaking. It's not safe for them to go back. So about a week ago, that was when Temporary Protective Status was to end, and our Haitian people here, they— most of them didn't know what to do. They've stopped coming out in public. We've stopped seeing most of them in church. They're scared that ICE is going to pick them up and fearful of the mistreatment that has been happening to people who have been picked up around the country in different areas. And so it's been a difficult problem. Well, thank God the church went to prayer. By church, I mean the churches in Springfield, Christians in Springfield went to prayer. We wrote congressmen, the governor, Mike DeWine, got involved. And finally, thank God, prayers were answered. Temporary protective status is still on for now because a judge blocked the order that it be removed until further notice. So we're hoping and praying that their protective status will remain. Um, well, this week, a week later, now the bomb threats have started again in Springfield, Ohio. Schools have had to be closed down, children sent home. We picked my son up early from school yesterday. A second branch of his school today was threatened with a bomb threat. They're finding packages with anti-Haitian messages that are xenophobic and racist, saying basically it sounds like that they're gonna keep doing this until we get these Haitians outta here. It is unholy, it's evil, it's unchristian, it's terrible, especially among people like our Haitian neighbors here in Springfield who have been wonderful people and they've been good neighbors, they've been fellow companions in Christ, and there are literally thousands of Christians in this city who have been praying for them, trying to help them. Our hospital has been trying to keep the people who work here in our hospital being not only workers in custodial services, which several of them do, but we have people who are very trained, highly trained medical professionals who were doctors in their countries, and because they— it takes a while to get their license here in the U.S. They're doing things like interpreting for patients, which is very much needed. We really need that in our rooms. The birth rate has tripled in Springfield, Ohio since our Haitian neighbors came in, and I get to see them and I get to see their babies every day because I work in the mother-baby unit. That's one of my many units in the hospital. And I guess I say all this in this podcast tonight is because our community, we just need your prayers. We don't want to end up in the news like Minneapolis. Um, the Haitians are not the problem, believe me. I, I'm here, I see them, I know them. It's the racist, xenophobic, hateful red hat people who don't want people here, who are not white. And it basically comes down to that. I hate to oversimplify it or generalize, but that's what a lot of the rhetoric is. It's— it is racist, it's evil, it's xenophobic, it's— it's not of God. Let's just put it that way. So I tried to update you. I know some people may hear this and not believe it, but that's my experience. And, um, I just, I would hate to see anything happen. I think of these sweet people who come to my Sunday school class and who I have lunch with after church and who worship with us on Sunday mornings. And to think that they would be not only forced to leave but possibly put in, as, as we're seeing and understanding, they can't go home, so Some of them are put in these terrible prison situations which are horrific, and they're not criminals. That's the worst thing about it. They are people running for their lives. And my heart broke when one of the people I work with at the hospital told me, "Your president says I am not welcome here. I don't feel welcome, and I haven't seen him in a few days, and I worry about him." And it just breaks my heart. So pray for us, um, because they are welcome here in so many of our hearts. They are our brothers and sisters, and we want to see them thrive and grow and flourish. I personally hope they never have to leave until they want to, until they're able to, because I know they want to go home. It's their home, but they can't. And when you're in a situation where you're running for your life, how tragic would it have been if we would have said to refugees in World War II that you have to go back home, sorry, we declare you're safe now, if we knew that concentration camps were happening? And I know it's not the same situation, but imagine if we would have done that. We're doing something similar when people can't go home safely. So I implore you to pray for us. Thank you for listening to this episode of Voices in My Head, and thank you for your support, and thank you for loving people like Christ regardless of their skin color, regardless of their nationality. And we bless you and thank you for listening today. Have a great week.
