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THE ORIGINAL ‘WINE MOMS’ ARE IN OHIO. THEY’RE MOBILIZING TO
SUPPORT HAITIANS IN SPRINGFIELD.  
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Amanda Becker
February 5, 2026
The 19th
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_ Katie Paris founded Red, Wine & Blue to harness suburban women's
political power — now more than 600,000 members are deploying it to
oppose ICE in their communities. _

Red Wine and Blue founder Katie Paris; Viles Dorsainvil, director of
Haitian Community Help and Support Center; and Pastor Carl Ruby
invited donations during a February 3 “Unite for Springfield” Zoom
call attended by thousands. , (Courtesy Red Wine and Blue)

 

Katie Paris opened a “Unite for Springfield” Zoom gathering of
more than 4,000 people [[link removed]]
earlier this week by asking participants to share one thing in the
chat that was giving them hope. 

“Times are heavy. The subject we are discussing tonight is heavy.
We’re in a heavy moment. It is so important in these times to tap
into a sense of hope,” the mother of two said, sitting in front of a
colorful wall displaying her children’s artwork. 

“One thing that’s giving you hope right now, okay, let’s turn on
the chat. Let’s see them,” Paris prompted.

“My
children.” “Minnesotans.”“Community.” “Family.” “Decency.” “Grandchildren.” “Liam
Ramos
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Red Wine & Blue, an organization that Paris founded in 2019 to build a
diverse “sisterhood” of suburban women to fight political
extremism, hosted the call just hours before Tuesday night’s slated
expiration of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, an immigration
designation that has allowed some 350,000 Haitians to live and work
legally in the country. Springfield, a central Ohio city of 60,000
where as many as one in four residents are Haitian, was bracing for an
influx of federal immigration enforcement officers
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akin to the Trump administration’s violent crackdown in Minnesota.
Paris, who lives outside of Cleveland, about a three-hour drive
northeast of Springfield, tempered the hopeful tone at the start of
the meeting with political reality. 

“Last night, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration
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from ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians living and working
legally in America, and the fight is far from over. The Department of
Homeland Security immediately stated that they are taking the case to
the U.S. Supreme Court
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what that means: With this Supreme Court, Haitians could lose their
status in really a matter of weeks,” Paris said. 

“We’re going to talk about what’s next legally in all this,
we’re going to talk about what we can learn from Minneapolis, and
we’re also going to talk about how we can stay safe. Finally,
perhaps most importantly of all, we are going to be giving you
opportunities to take real action tonight,” she continued.

Women have been leading
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the opposition
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to Donald Trump’s second presidency
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playing key roles in resistance efforts and forming groups to counter
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the administration’s policies on immigration and more. During the
2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly targeted the Haitians in Springfield
with lies — as did now Vice President JD Vance, an Ohioan — to
bolster his calls for a crackdown on even legal immigration. The
president said he would “protect” women from immigrants,
“whether the women like it or not
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despite polls showing that women did not rank immigration among their
top concerns, nor did they trust Trump the most
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the issue. 

A PBS News/NPR/Marist Poll released Thursday showed that nearly
two-thirds of Americans
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now believe Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has
gone too far in its methods after federal agents killed Renee Nicole
Good and Alex Pretti
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in Minneapolis. When broken down by gender
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just 26 percent of women said they approved of how ICE was doing
compared to 40 percent of men, the poll showed.

Paris, who worked in national politics
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back to her husband’s hometown from Washington, D.C., founded Red
Wine & Blue to harness the political power of suburban women, a
rapidly diversifying group that determines the outcome of elections
— and often votes with different priorities on their minds than men
do. 

“It was really my reaction to the 2018 election and seeing all these
women, particularly in the suburbs, become involved in politics for
the very first time as a result of the 2016 election,” she said in
an interview after the organizing call. “I knew that we needed to
keep them engaged, and women are not always taken as seriously as I
believe they should be.”

The Ohio chapter was Red Wine & Blue’s first, followed by chapters
in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan — all critical states
in presidential elections. There is also a national network of
“Trouble Nation” groups for women living outside of those four
states. Red Wine & Blue now has more than 600,000 members and a staff
of about 60. Its members and affiliated groups held 4,000 events last
year, most of them in person. 

The opportunity for action during Tuesday night’s Zoom came in a
series of requests for donations for Springfield groups supporting
Haitian families. Participants heard from local pastor Carl Ruby
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whose congregation includes Haitians and is vocal about supporting
them; Catholic charity leader Casey Rollins,
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who has urged Haitian parents to get passports and documents for their
U.S.-born children in case of deportation or separation; Viles
Dorsainvil, director of the nonprofit Haitian Community Help and
Support Center; and legal experts who advised them on their rights and
precautions to take when documenting ICE activity. Minneapolis-based
Rev. Ashley Horan also joined to talk  about how her community
stepped up to care for their immigrant neighbors
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In between speakers, Paris reminded those on the call — the vast
majority were women and many were Ohioans, or had connections to Ohio
or to Haiti, or a mix of those — that the way to help this time was
to give money, and to do it fast. “We’re not going to keep this
donate page up for long because we do need to get these funds in the
hands of these organizations quickly — they are providing such
urgently needed services on the ground,” she said. 

The chat lit up again as the participants donated as little as $10 and
as much as a $10,000 match.

“Donated.”“Donated.”“Donated again.”

In less than an hour, Red Wine & Blue surpassed its fundraising target
for the evening, collecting more than $107,000 for local groups
supporting Springfield’s Haitian residents.

Red Wine & Blue focuses on what Paris describes as
“friend-to-friend” organizing; it does not spend money on
expensive television ad campaigns or anonymous phone-banking efforts.
Third-party analysis that matched Red Wine & Blue’s contacts to
voter files showed that their on-the-ground organizing increased
turnout by 5 percent in even years and 8 to 11 percent in odd years.
Paris said that a recent membership analysis showed that 54 percent of
their members are current or former political independents or
Republicans. 

She gave the group its name — no wine consumption is required for
membership, by the way — because she is “all about leaning into
the tropes” that are put on women to “regain our political
power.”

“They called us the ‘suburban housewives’ in 2020. We’ve been
the ‘Chardonnay Antifa.’ Now they’re saying the ‘wine moms’
are paid protesters. We’ve been ‘soccer moms’ and ‘Zoom
moms.’ I think all of that is meant to reduce us
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actually do have political power,” Paris said. 

After a Fox News columnist wrote last month
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that “organized gangs of wine moms” were using “Antifa
tactics” to oppose ICE, Red Wine & Blue fired back on social media:
“Add it to the very long list of names they’ve called us. They can
try to scare us, they can try to shame us… but we’re still showing
up, still supporting our communities.”

After the Zoom call, Paris said, “People are already getting their
protest signs ready for the next ‘No Kings’ Day, saying: Red Wine
& Blue, the original ‘wine moms.’"

 

_I’m AMANDA BECKER, The 19th’s national reporter. I’ve covered
national politics and issues for nearly two decades, including stints
at the White House and in Congress, oral arguments at the Supreme
Court, four presidential elections and scores of House and Senate
campaigns. In 2024, I left Washington after 17 years to better
position myself to examine how decisions made in the nation’s
capital impact American communities. I’m now based in Ohio and also
spend time in the West Virginia mountains._

 

_The 19th is an independent, nonprofit newsroom covering the
intersection of gender, politics, policy and power. Our mission is to
give women and LGBTQ+ people — especially those excluded from the
promise of the 19th Amendment by their gender, race, ethnicity, class
or disability — the information they need to fully participate in
our democracy. Our aim is to help them play a more equal and active
role in shaping the future of American politics, policymaking and
power structures._

 

* Women organizing
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* Ohio
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* Haitians
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* TPS
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* Immigration Policy
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