The US administration has unleashed ICE into the streets of Springfield to target Haitians who had their legal status stripped away. Many leave immigration check-ins with ankle monitors. Haitians are so far the only group to be humiliated that way, and it is also the first time these devices are deployed on non-criminals.
ICE also detained pastors Adrien and Dumano, two Haitian leaders who have lived in the US for over a decade and who provided essential spiritual and mental health support to the community.
Haitian families are terrified to leave their homes. Deportation flights to Haiti are accelerating despite obviously unsafe conditions.
Quixote Center answered the call from Haitian leaders to join their growing movement in Springfield last week to support the Haitian community and to bring faithful witness to what is happening. For three days, we helped any way we could: advocating, fundraising, preparing boxes of food, creating signs and marshaling during Sunday’s Jericho walk around City Hall.
Quixote Center is horrified at our country’s treatment of the Haitian community in Springfield. We do not recognize our own country. The tragic death of 20-year-old Pierre Damas Bel because of bullying and stigma for having an ankle monitor is heartbreaking and senseless. Pierre Damas Bel had legal status one day and stripped of that the next. They all were. He did the things we say we want in our society: he was an honor student, in college with hopes of becoming a neurosurgeon, a hard worker, an athlete. Then suddenly treated as a criminal to the point that it was so shameful he couldn’t face it.
We call on the administration to do the right thing: to restore temporary protected status to Haitians, to remove all ankle monitors, and to release the Haitian pastors.
Add comment