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IT WON’T JUST BE HAITIANS WHO SUFFER FROM ANTI-IMMIGRANT LIES  
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Chisom Okorafor
October 8, 2024
Other Words
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_ Politicians are attempting to redefine who counts as an
“American,” with my Black immigrant family and people like us on
the outside. _

, (Shutterstock)

 

For weeks now, right-wing pundits and politicians have
spread baseless claims
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Haitian immigrants.

These lies have caused immense fear among the community, leading
to bomb threats
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harassment, and vandalism. The Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio
— the first but not the last to be targeted — reported being
“scared for their lives
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I’m not Haitian. I’m an American-born citizen who’s never set
foot in Ohio. But as the daughter of a Black immigrant family, these
lies worry me, too.

I know personally how easily identifiable we are. Even though my
Nigerian parents were both naturalized over 20 years ago, they still
have strong accents. We have distinctive names. To someone who was
radicalized by the hateful rhetoric flying around, my family and I are
obvious targets. 

Just like how Donald Trump’s earlier comments targeting Mexican
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people
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a wave of hate against all Latin Americans, Asians, or others thought
to “look” Mexican or Chinese, the baseless accusations about
Haitians will rebound to all Black immigrants — and the Black
community as a whole.

Growing up, I’ve seen firsthand how Black immigrants are some of our
most vulnerable community members. For one, many of these immigrants
come from largely Black countries
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are unprepared for the experience of confronting racism in a way they
never had to before. 

Black immigrant communities live all across the country. While states
like New York have long had Black immigrant communities
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a Pew Research study in 2022 showed that a plurality — 42 percent
— of Black immigrants now live in the South. My parents are among
them.

Texas’s Black immigrant population has shot up
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the last decade, and the state now houses the third biggest Black
immigrant population. Other states are seeing similarly big increases.
In Colorado, the Black immigrant population grew over fourfold
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that period.

Though politicians increasingly characterize immigration as a problem
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immigrants have always been — and are still — a massive benefit to
our society. 

For one, both documented and undocumented
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provide more to our economy
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they take out. Far from being burdens, immigrants
actually _create_ economic growth in the places they arrive in. The
Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio helped fill jobs that were
abandoned due to the town’s shrinking population, leading to
a boost in wages
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the whole community.

Moreover, far from bringing in “drugs and crime,” as some
politicians claim, studies have shown
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having more immigrants in a community actually tends
to _reduce_ crime rates. Both undocumented and documented immigrants
commit crime at a lower rate
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U.S.-born citizens. 

And in regards to drugs, it’s not immigrants who are smuggling
illicit substances into our country — by an enormous margin,
it’s U.S. citizens
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authorities recently charged
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a neo-Nazi group with trafficking fentanyl in California, for example.

Instead, immigrants like my parents bring in culture, innovation, and
diversity — all good things that make this country what it is. We
should be supporting immigrants more, not slandering them on the
national stage. 

But for some, sowing division is more attractive than actually finding
solutions to the problems we face. The attacks on Haitian immigrants
is more than a disgusting lie — it’s an attempt to redefine who
counts as an “American,” with my family and people like us on the
outside. 

Our leaders need to have the courage to defend immigrants when these
baseless claims are spread. They owe it to _all_ Americans, both
citizens and immigrants.

_Chisom Okorafor is a Henry A. Wallace fellow at the Institute for
Policy Studies. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org._

* Haitians
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* Immigrants
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