1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

I am contacting you to ask for your leadership in de-escalating the hostile environment facing Haitian residents in Springfield. This rhetoric endangers not only these families but also the economic recovery of our entire region. Springfield’s recent economic upswing is largely due to the hard work of our Haitian neighbors. They stepped up to fill critical vacancies in local factories and service sectors jobs that had sat empty for years. By starting businesses and paying taxes, they are driving our local growth, not holding it back. It is also essential to be accurate regarding the law. The majority of this community is here legally under programs like TPS. Furthermore, mere undocumented presence is a civil violation, not a crime. In the 2012 ruling Arizona v. United States, the Supreme Court explicitly stated that "it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States." Treating civil infractions as criminal acts is both legally baseless and morally wrong. These families came to the US for better lives, not to be racially profiled and arrested and abused by ICE. Finally, we must reject heavy-handed federal intervention. We cannot allow ICE to turn our streets into a battlefield, as was seen in Minneapolis. Militarized enforcement would only create chaos and devastate the local businesses that rely on this workforce. I urge you to stand for stability and integration, rather than division.