When do Haitians get to stop running?
“You don’t have to come from a major stage to reach a major stage,” Camie Berard told the Toledo Blade. She want to junior high and high school with Geoff Pipoly in Sylvania, Ohio, and was being interviewed about Pipoly’s role arguing against the President’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians before the U.S. Supreme Court (read behind paywall).
A graduate of Northview High School, Pipoly works for Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in Chicago. The case, Miot vs. Trump, is one of two class action lawsuits challenging the administration’s attempts to revoke TPS for Haitians and Syrians. The administration has been steadily losing in court, but no one can predict what the U.S. Supreme Court will decide.
However, it’s crystal clear to everyone that the President’s decision to end TPS for Haitians was driven by abject racism, which is a violation of the 5th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He has made no attempt to even hide it, and built up a damning list of public evidence in his two terms, such as:
Referring to Haiti (and African nations) as “shithole countries.”
Spreading the offensive and false claim that Haitians in Springfield eat cats and dogs, sparking threats and violence against Haitians in Ohio and around the country.
Falsely stating that Haitians coming to the U.S. “probably have AIDS,” are “savage criminal aliens,” and are destroying Springfield, Ohio’s way of life — which couldn’t be further from the truth. After an adjustment period largely driven by the way public schools are funded and lack of financial support from the federal government and state to population shifts, it’s widely known that Haitians have saved what was once a dying town. Once again, though, Springfield’s future in uncertain.
“The bottom line is that the President’s rhetoric about immigrants gets much more aggressive the darker your skin gets,” said Pipoly. In fact, according to The Blade, “only 300 out of 350,000, or less than a tenth of a percent, of Haitian immigrants under TPS have ever been investigated for a crime.” In contrast, 2% of white U.S. Americans were actually arrested for committing crimes between May 2025 and May 2026, according to the FBI Crime Data Explorer.
“I really wish that we didn’t have to talk about President Trump and what he said, because the fact that he’s involved in this case gives some people the idea that we’re just suing because we don’t like the President,” said Pipoly. “Our point here is not that we don’t like the President. The point here is that people are going to die. Regardless of the reason that’s happening, that’s wrong, and we’re going to try to stop it.”
More proof that President Trump’s decision was made based on racism is the fact that Haiti is not a safe country to live in, for anyone. Less than a month ago, Trump’s own State Department renewed its
On April 16, the U.S. Department of State renewed its Level 4 - Do Not Travel advisory for Haiti, telling American citizens who do go there against the government’s advice to “prepare a will” and “have a plan to leave in an emergency that does not depend on U.S. government help.”
“Choose one family member to serve as the point of contact,” the advisory states. “If you are kidnapped or taken hostage, that person can communicate with kidnappers or hostage-takers, media, U.S. or foreign government agencies, and members of Congress.” The danger is not only for U.S. Americans, of course. Haitians are murdered every day.
Writes The Blade:
Members of Pastor Carl Ruby’s Springfield, Ohio, congregation have survived gang violence, kidnapping attempts, and, in one case, intimidation tactics that include finding a lifelong friend’s decapitated body on their front porch.
Mr. Pipoly sees the mental effects this leaves on the Haitians he represents. One moment, conversation is easy-going, casual, and normal. But when Haiti is brought up, “it’s like a PTSD switch goes on in their head,” he said.
Any cheerfulness is replaced by a flat tone and a thousand-yard stare.
“They’ve compartmentalized all that,” Mr. Pipoly said. “A dozen people or more on all nonconsecutive occasions, same exact experience. These people are terrified — and with good reason.”
Haiti currently has one of the highest murder rates in the world. In February, the bodies of four decapitated women were found along the Dominican Republic’s border with Haiti.
“If it was Club Med right now, there would be several hundred thousand people who would probably prefer to be there and not here, but they can’t go back because it's not safe,” Mr. Pipoly said.
We have heard this ourselves talking to Haitians in Ohio and other states. They love their country. They carry joyful memories. The miss the food, family, the clothing, parties, music. We have been lucky to experience some of it here. But there is nothing like home.
Haitians have set out to find a safe place to live and raise their families not because they wanted to, but because they had to. They’ve gone to Brazil. Chile. Mexico. The United States. Many people in Ohio would like this to be the place they get to stop moving and settle in. Bring their families. Take a breath. When will it happen for them?
From The Blade:
“These are our neighbors. They attend our churches. They sit next to us in pews on Sunday mornings, and we have grown to love them,” Pastor Ruby said. “It’s unbearable for me to think of some of these families and children being sent back to a place where they may lose their lives.”
Some Haitian immigrants are stockpiling canned and dry goods to avoid leaving the house. Hundreds of families with U.S.-born children have contacted authorities to pre-emptively set up foster care in the event of their deportation.
“That’s how bad Haiti is. A parent, faced with the choice of having to take their child there, would rather give their child up to a stranger,” Mr. Pipoly said. “When I first heard that news, I will admit that I just sobbed. I cannot imagine having to make that choice as a parent. I just can’t imagine.” Read
Read the Toledo Blade story “Sylvania native represents Haitian immigrants before Supreme Court” (behind paywall).
