Attribution: Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash
By Geoff Carter
America has always had a love-hate relationship with its immigrants. On the one hand, we need them. We couldn’t have built the country without them. They raised our skyscrapers, worked our sweatshops, labored in our fields, and harvested our crops. Today they care for the elderly, teach our children, and treat our ailments. On the other hand, we fear them. They have often been treated with suspicion, fear, and loathing—and racism.
Most immigrants only want to come here to find a better life for themselves or their families or to fulfill their dreams. Some flee here because their lives are in danger. They want to be here, they want to work, and they want to be Americans, yet some of our citizens would have a problem with immigrants—especially people of color—moving in next door. Every immigrant group from the Irish to the Italians to the Chinese to the Japanese have experienced suspicion, anger, and hate from those who came before them. Realizing the American Dream was not easy then—and it’s still not now.
Racism is ingrained in the American tapestry of history. From the days of slavery to the failures of Reconstruction to the KKK to Jim Crow to poll taxes and segregation, racism is embedded in our institutions, our culture, and in our hearts and minds. It’s there whether we acknowledge it—or even recognize it—or not.
For a while, we seemed to be winning the struggle for racial equality. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society made vast efforts to level the fields for education, health care, and fair political representation. A few years ago, we elected our first African American president. We seemed to be on the way up.
Then came Trump 2.0. Although already steeped in the virulent anti-immigration and racist rhetoric from his first administration, the country was ill-prepared for the viciously cruel and barbaric tactics employed by Trump, his junior Nazi Stephen Miller, and the jack-booted ICE thugs they employed to intimidate and terrify our citizens, particularly dark-skinned Americans.
They were ill-prepared, but Americans stood up to the onslaught—and they won. Concentrated ICE attacks in the cities of Chicago and Minneapolis did not succeed in intimidating the populace—but they sparked so much horror and outrage that Trump was forced to pull back his offensive. They have not, however, given up on targeting our immigrant population.
This past week, with the aid of his hand-picked conservative majority of The Supreme Court, Trump has rescinded protections to hundreds of thousands Haitian and Syrian immigrants who fled to the U.S. to avoid persecution or imprisonment. Or worse. The recent Supreme Court Mullin -v- Doe decision extinguishing the Temporary Protected Status will put 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians at risk of deportation, an action that the Trump administration will surely take. Trump will be happy to see them go. The city of Springfield will not. These pending deportations will deplete their labor force and severely cripple their economy.
Trump’s racism towards the Haitians has been evident—cringingly obvious. “He has said that allowing in Haitian immigrants was a “death wish for our country” and that “they all have AIDS,” and accused them of eating household pets. He has referred to Haiti as a “filthy, dirty, disgusting” place, a “shithole” country, while complaining that America doesn’t take in enough people from Norway and Sweden” (The Atlantic). Apparently, white immigrants are okay.
But, according to The City of Springfield Website, where many Haitian immigrants have made their home, Haitians are in Springfield legally under the Immigration Parole Program and, until very recently, were under the protection of the Temporary Protection Services program designed for immigrants seeking sanctuary from dangerous homelands. These refugees are working in the health care industry, manufacturing, warehouses, and service industries. According to this website, Haitians have opened ten new businesses including two restaurants, seven grocery stores, and one food truck. Fewer than one percent of the Haitian population is in the county jail. The website goes on to dispel rumors about Haitians eating geese in public parks, eating housecats, and that “they all have AIDS”. For the most part, they seem to be a welcome and valuable part of the Springfield community.
The Mullin -v- Doe ruling is a microcosm of how Trump’s immigration policies—fueled by his blatant racism—is damaging the country’s economy, our system of laws, and the heart of our democracy.
Most of us have known, worked with, or met first generation immigrants to America. We’re related to immigrants; our forefathers came to this country with the same hopes and dreams that today’s newcomers do. They want a safe place to live, a way to provide for their families, and the hope for better lives for their children.
When I was working with Milwaukee Public Schools as a mentor to new teachers, I was assigned a number of international teachers who had come here from countries like Nigeria, Albania, Jamaica, Spain, and Mexico for the opportunity to become teachers. Many came with nothing more than a single suitcase—like many of our forefathers. Teaching in an urban school is not easy work, but my teachers relished the opportunity to come here.
One of my Nigerian teachers had a law degree but came here to teach because it was a better opportunity for her. She was waiting to become established before sending for her family and was living in a temporary home with three other Nigerian international teachers. They had few cooking utensils and almost no creature comforts. This teacher was emblematic of all the internationals I worked with. As tough as things were, she was grateful for the opportunity.
I recently attended a graduation ceremony for residents at a local medical college celebrating the members of a program designed to treat underserved urban populations. Instead of choosing more lucrative specialties like dermatology or orthopedics, these physicians chose to specialize in family practice for the less fortunate. Of the dozen or so graduates, one was from Jamaica, one was from Grenada, one was from India, one from Israel, one from Jordan, and four were from Nigeria. One of the newly minted Nigerian doctors made his way through Canada, another had first moved to London, and the Jordanian doctor had first moved to Canada, but they all ended up here.
They came to the ceremony in customary dress of their home countries, proud of their native heritage. Many of had their families in attendance, but others had their loved ones watching from their faraway homes via Zoom. Some graduates spoke of the hardships in getting here. Some spoke of the hardships of being strangers in a strange land, of the doubts and fears they had coming to America.
Nevertheless, they came. These particular meticulously trained and highly skilled physicians came to serve the poor and needy citizens of this country. They chose to be here because America is the land of opportunity, the beacon of freedom, the light of democracy (at least it used to be), and they came because they wanted to help the less fortunate. They might have taken Emma Lazarus’ poem The New Colossus at face value, thinking they would be welcomed here—as they should be:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
–Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus
But not today. Not in Trumpworld.
In these troubling times, the “wretched refuse” is not those people coming to our shores from other lands, but those who would deny them access to the same freedoms and liberties they enjoy. Those who discriminate, terrorize, belittle, and bully our immigrants are the “wretched refuse”. They are the ones who—In the words of their hero Donald Trump—are “poisoning the blood of our nation”. Not the immigrants they are so fond of attacking.
No, the immigrants are not poisoning the blood of our nation, they are the lifeblood of our nation, and they always have been. They are our national assets.
Notes
- https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/scotus-asylum-racial-discrimination/687710/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-haiti-race.html?searchResultPosition=1
- https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-supreme-court-enables-trumps-cruel-immigration-agenda
- https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/05/01/future-of-haitians-living-in-ohio-with-temporary-protected-status-depends-on-the-u-s-supreme-court/
- https://springfieldohio.gov/immigration-faqs/
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