Haitian Bridge Alliance Details Criminal Complaint Against Donald Trump And JD Vance
A man carries an AI-generated image of Donald Trump carrying cats away from Haitian immigrants, a reference to falsehoods spread about Springfield, Ohio, during a campaign rally for Trump at the Tucson Music Hall in Tucson, Arizona, on September 12, 2024. | Source: REBECCA NOBLE / Getty
The Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), a grassroots nonprofit organization advocating for fair and humane immigration policies, has filed charges against former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential running mate, JD Vance, for the unfounded and racist lies they spread about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, late last month.
During an interview with CNN’s Laura Coates last Thursday, Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of the HBA, outlined the extensive charges detailed in their complaint filed in the Clark County Municipal Court on Sept. 24. The organization seeks to hold the Republicans accountable for making false alarms, telecommunications harassment, aggravated menacing, and complicity, among other charges, stemming from their allegations that Haitian community members in Springfield have been eating the pets of local residents.
“We believe in the rules of the law, and we believe that no one is above the law, so we are trusting in that fact that we will prevail, and because if we don’t, history will judge us harshly,” Jozef said. “We cannot, in 2024, looking ahead of an election, have this type of rhetoric that’s coming out of people who are in power, people who are supposed to represent the population…whether they are immigrants or not.”
Springfield schools and hospitals were on high alert as bomb threats increased in the city due to Trump and Vance’s racist rumor. In response, the Ohio State Police significantly bolstered their protective efforts. According to the Associated Press, beginning on Sept. 17, authorities announced that the Ohio State Highway Patrol would deploy additional officers to local schools to safeguard students and faculty following several bomb threats. Officers performed morning sweeps of each building before the arrival of staff and students. Additionally, security cameras were set up at strategic locations throughout the city, and a bomb-sniffing dog was made available around the clock.
The Independent noted that two local hospitals in Springfield were also threatened due to the harmful lies. Both facilities — Kettering Health Springfield and Mercy Health’s Springfield Regional Medical Center — experienced brief lockdowns on the morning of Sept. 15 after receiving bomb threats. The hospitals, at the heart of Trump’s false claims, have since resumed normal operations. Police and hospital security conducted thorough searches and found no suspicious items.
When Coates asked Jozef about the ultimate goal behind the complaint seeking the arrest of Trump and Vance for their egregious actions, the human rights advocate expressed her hope that “justice” would be served. She emphasized that this would send a clear message to Republican politicians that such behavior will not be tolerated.
“Currently, the city of Springfield is under siege. You have school children unable to go to schools, not just Haitian students, all the students in Springfield, the churches, the banks, the offices, even the cultural event that was supposed to be happening, the city canceled because of the threats that are coming out of the situation,” Jozef explained. “So, we must continue to push back. We must say, not, not now, not never. We cannot move back. It’s 2024. Those rhetorics have no place in our community. It has no place in our society. But we do understand that anti-black racism and white supremacy sits in every avenue of the United States. So, we are standing against that.”
Vance has made immigration a central theme of his campaign, aligning himself with Trump’s demands for stricter border policies and mass deportations, while also advocating for the resumption of border wall construction. Neither party has apologized for perpetuating harmful rhetoric about the Haitian community. In a mid-September interview on CNN, Vance, the senator from Ohio, defended the damaging rumors, claiming that the media had “totally” ignored the issue until he and his running mate brought it to public attention.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he told CNN.
“It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”
Josef and the HBA are also holding the Biden administration accountable for their failure to protect Haitian immigrants seeking asylum in the US.
Jozef and the HBA are also going after The Biden administration, urging the President to grant protections to Haitian immigrants seeking asylum in the United States.
In an Instagram post, shared on April 9, the nonprofit revealed that more than 160,000 people have been displaced on the island’s capital city, Port-Au-Prince, due to deteriorating conditions around the metropolitan area and “armed gangs” seizing the capital.
“Haitians fleeing violence, persecution, and poverty need support, not punishment,” the HBA penned in their open letter on Instagram. “The Biden administration has the power to build an equitable humanitarian protection system that welcomes refugees regardless of race, ethnicity, background, or country of origin. Seeking asylum is a human right, and it’s critical that we do everything we can to ensure that we adhere to international and human rights laws.
The letter added, “We must cease deportation flights to Haiti IMMEDIATELY. Returning people to such dire conditions is unconscionable and a violation of human rights.”
According to the HBA website, on December 12, 2022, the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, in collaboration with the Haitian Bridge Alliance, and several other institutions, requested a thematic hearing with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The request aimed to address the ongoing deportation of Haitian nationals by the United States and called for the granting of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to allow immigrants from the island to seek safety in the U.S.
“Deportations pose a grave risk to life and personal security, particularly as the Haitian government has started immediately detaining many deported individuals right off the plane and placing them in prison indefinitely with no legal justification, hoping to extract a ransom,” the letter stated.
The organization sent a follow-up letter in March.
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