As ICE closes in, Ohio churches line up families to care for Haitian kids left behind

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (RNS) — On Friday evening (Aug. 14), Philomene Philostin, a local youth pastor, business owner and nonprofit leader, stood on the street corner outside Springfield, Ohio’s City Hall, crying out in Haitian Creole. Pastor Fontil Daity, a Haitian immigrant who leads a local Pentecostal Haitian church, interpreted in English: “Haitians! Haitians! … We cannot take it anymore. We ask for God in heaven to hear our cries!”

About 75 people gathered around them in the sweltering heat, many holding signs that read, “Love your neighbor” — a reference to the biblical command to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Philostin told RNS she initiated the gathering in response to a new flurry of ICE raids in the city starting the day before. The peaceful protest wove together prayers and testimonies from community members, lawyers and faith leaders. Daity, singing in Haitian Creole, then in English, led attendees in the hymn “Precious Lord Take My Hand.”

For many of the more than 10,000 Haitians in the city of about 58,000, their faith in God — and the support of local immigrants’ rights organizers and faith leaders — is what’s sustaining them as they reckon with the end of…