On Wednesday, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins published a post on X calling Haiti “the nastiest country in the western hemisphere,” apparently reacting to a formal criminal complaint from a Haitian immigrant group in Springfield, Ohio, against Donald Trump and JD Vance for their perpetuation of false rumors about members of the community eating local pets.
Even though the post was deleted, it did not go unnoticed, prompting major backlash and a motion to censure Higgins, claiming the post was inciting “hate and fear.”
The episode is just the latest in the ongoing saga that has taken over not yet the Haitian community at large but the state of Ohio. As a result, the city of Columbus, less than 50 miles from Springfield, is moving forward with the creation of a Commission on Immigrants and Refugee Affairs, aimed at addressing the challenges faced by the city’s immigrant communities.…