As the Trump administration begins its assault on immigrant communities, it’s crucial that the left organize and get in formation now. We offer this as one example of what that work can look like. 

In early December 2024, the New Lynn Coalition and the North Shore Haitian Association rallied an event to counter the racist anti-Haitian lies of the New Confederacy, welcome the Haitian community and direct that community to resources they might need, and begin to coalesce the united front against mass deportations. Initiated in response to Vance and Trump spreading hateful lies about Haitians “stealing and eating cats and dogs” in Springfield, Ohio, it took on a broader significance after Trump won the presidential election. Our goal was to draw a minimum of 50 or 60 people, Haitians as well as people from the broader community. We met that and more with about 100 participants. It was a success—a strong start. 

The New Lynn Coalition is made up of over a dozen organizations working together to build a permanent working-class pole in our city around economic, political, and cultural issues—a 12-year-old independent political organization uniting many of Lynn’s diverse working-class communities. The North Shore Haitian Association was formed over a year ago to advocate for the growing Haitian population on the North Shore of Massachusetts. 

A powerful welcome in English and French from the President of the New Lynn Coalition, a Congolese migrant, struck home: “I am African! We welcome you to help us build a New Lynn and its united working-class majority, not two Lynns. We don’t care what language you speak, where you come from, the color of your skin, how you worship, or who you love. We are with you in solidarity and will not tolerate scapegoating any of our peoples and will always fight white supremacy and fascism.” This is the basic line of the New Lynn Coalition.

The North Shore Haitian Association welcomed people as well, provided Haitian food (which was well-received, and that is an understatement!) and asked us all to call our congressman to stop any military intervention in Haiti, respect the constitution of Haiti, and stop the flow of arms from the US to the gangs/paramilitaries. 

Understanding US Imperialism’s Impact on Haiti

Migration cannot be understood outside the context of US foreign policy, and we centered a presentation on Haitian history and its domination by France and then the US. The main talk by the North Shore Haitian Association described:

• The independence war in 1804 and the French imposition of $21 billion (in today’s dollars) as “reparations” for the freed slaves (that is, ransom to free their own bodies from those who enslaved and profited from them), which has confined the country up to today. 
• US support for the bloody Duvalier dictatorships (Papa Doc and Baby Doc, father and son)
• The overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, the first genuinely democratically elected President of Haiti, and his forced exile to the Central African Republic. 
• The current domination by the CORE group, set up by foreign powers without a single Haitian, and the police force from Kenya.
• The funding of the gangs/paramilitaries—highlighted in mainstream news coverage—by the Haitian elite. Many of that elite are also US citizens, like Gilbert Bigio, the richest man in Haiti, who resides in Florida. 

Unions and churches have asked for copies of the presentation to continue the political education of their members.

Uniting Against Deportations

We targeted three sectors for support that we believed were essential and likely elements of building a united front against mass deportations: communities of faith, labor, and local elected officials. 

A representative of the Essex County Community Organization, which includes churches and temples on the North Shore, spoke of the Haitian community: 

“Organizing across different backgrounds is a way to live out our faith. It’s an opportunity not just to fight for the world we want but to practice living in the world as God intended it to be…As people of faith, we are called to walk alongside them…When we stand together, we embody the power of community and faith. Regardless of where we come from, we all need the same things—to be safe, to be seen, and to see our families thrive.” 

A rabbi from Lynn shared a teaching from Jewish tradition that speaks to the moment we are in and the need for solidarity: 

“‘God gathered the dust [of the first human] from the four corners of the world [so that] every place that a person walks, from there he was created and from there he will return.’ This ancient text shows us that migration is not new—migration is human, and has happened as long as there were humans on this earth…I am the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor…It is our obligation to create a world that will accept us all no matter where we end up. And that starts by accepting everyone here in Lynn…Our safety is tied up in one another’s safety. We all belong here together.”

The corporations are falling all over themselves to make peace with Trump – even those who said they would stop funding him after January 6, and who claimed to oppose him before November 5. Capitalists will always follow the money. The North Shore Labor Council responded: 

“The labor movement has a particular obligation to fight back against this government tyranny. We may be some of the last genuinely democratic institutions left in the country. We won’t just be on the front lines, we’ll be some of the last lines of defense. We can provide legal support to our members to give them a pathway to citizenship, we can file unfair labor practice charges and go on strike if management invites ICE into the workplace, we can provide aid and be there when disaster strikes and we’re at our lowest, and we can give a voice to working people as our elected leaders abandon us and refuse to listen.”

A Haitian shop steward from SEIU 509 spoke of the resilience and power of the Haitian people. The President of the Lynn Teachers Union, in tears, promised: 

“As a Lynn teacher and local leader, one of my chief duties is to ensure the health and safety of all my students. And that includes protecting them, not just from harmful and false claims about who they are and where they come from, but to promote and praise my students for everything they have to offer to this world. The Lynn Teachers Union stands in solidarity with our Haitian brothers, sisters, and siblings.”

The entire Lynn City Council, the Mayor and our two state representatives signed a powerful statement written by New Lynn, which was read by a Haitian/Dominican City Councilor. 

“Our city has a proud history of fighting for freedom and inclusion…We welcome migrants and commit to using every available means to prevent the harassment and deportations of migrants and their families, including Haitians who have faced racist dehumanizing insults from high-ranking government officials including President-elect Trump and his VP JD Vance as well as openly fascist groups across the country. The Mayor, the Lynn City Council and State Delegation will work to unify all parts of our community, from the public schools to our businesses and labor unions, to ensure the safety and protection of all our people. We are All Lynn.”

Finally, two Dominicans spoke. This carried special weight due to the history of conflict between Haitians and Dominicans, who share the island of Hispaniola. The long-time Dominican dictator Trujillo “othered” Haitians as a scapegoat for his own oppression of the Dominican people. More Haitians are being deported from the Dominican Republic today than from the United States. A community leader from New Lynn partner Neighbor to Neighbor pledged her support, and a student from nearby Salem State University denounced the attacks on Haitians in her own home country as well as in her new home, the United States. Her remarks, as well as the introductory words in French and especially the history of Haiti, received the strongest response from the Haitians present.  

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Event

“Giving a hug to the Haitian community” in a time of fear and oppression was successful. We received good coverage in the local daily paper. It weighs on you when all you hear is how awful your country is: “shithole country,” “eating dogs and cats,” gangs and violence, again and again. One leader of a Haitian group roamed the room, showing videos of the countryside, so those of us who had never been there could see how beautiful the country is – as the history introduction put it, “the most mountainous country in the Caribbean, a hikers’ paradise!” We also provided information tables with help with legal issues, housing, and community gardening. New Lynn is offering free classes in computer basics and English in Creole in our Lynn Community Engagement Program, or “night school.”

The depth of ties New Lynn has built over the last 10 years enabled us to rally representatives from the three sectors we targeted within just a few weeks in response to the “cats and dogs” libel. We showed how the issue of “immigration” is tied to US foreign policy and must be explained that way. 

We had less participation from local Haitian churches than we had hoped. Haiti is a devout country, dominated for most of its religious history by Catholicism. More recently Pentecostal and Evangelical Protestantism have grown rapidly, as in Central and South America. Historic African religious influences like Voudu have had syncretic impacts on all of these. It is not possible to organize with that community without respecting that background. 

Too late we realized that our Sunday afternoon start time, which we thought would coincide with the end of services, was in fact too early, especially since pastors spend a lot of time after church welcoming and chatting with parishioners. The program was held in the basement of a Catholic church, and we drew some people by standing in the parking lot with signs welcoming people to join us. It also may be that the fear that has pervaded the Haitian and other migrant communities inhibited their participation. 

The labor participation was stronger than expected, with Haitian union leaders from SEIU and the Boston Teachers Union as well as new Haitian members of UFCW and IUE-CWA joining non-Haitian union members. It may be that union protection made these Haitian workers more willing to step out than, for example, an average parishioner at the Pentecostal church. In any case, Haitian workers are a growing part of the labor movement here and are likely to be a powerful voice against Trump’s xenophobia.

 At the same time, we do not suffer from the misunderstanding of much of the left that “immigrants” are somehow a solid progressive bloc. Lynners from Congo and Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Pakistan, all reported some family and friends who were supporting Trump.  Reasons given were often abortion and the economy, but also included random false stories, even that Trump had promised to get Pakistan’s Imran Khan out of jail. Many are convinced that Trump will not deport otherwise law-abiding undocumented folks. And they don’t want criminals from whom they suffered in their home countries to follow them across the border to the US any more than any other working-class people do. We expect conflict within and between immigrant communities in our city as well as between them and the power structure at local and national levels. 

In retrospect, it may have been wise to reach out to small businesses. The Haitian small businesses depend on that community. Some fear that they will be deported so someone else can steal their business, as happened to Jews in Germany. The most influential people in a new and growing immigrant community tend to be clergy and small business people. They have been strong allies on issues such as winning driver’s licenses for undocumented people. On the other hand, when we added “Ceasefire in Gaza” for our May Day march, we lost the support of some Guatemalan evangelicals. Both sectors are likely to be strong allies against deportations, especially if Trump actually moves to mass deportations.

Looking Ahead

We concluded the meeting by asking people to “Stay Ready” for whatever comes next, like the nickname for the powerful bench of the Boston Celtics. For non-sports fans, the bench is those players who are back-ups, not starters, for the team. They have to be ready to play, never knowing when the call will come or circumstances. We don’t want to be caught off balance from whatever Trump does, and he is deliberately unpredictable—that’s his M.O. But we could have been clearer on the push to make the calls the North Shore Haitian Association asked us to make. We adjusted following the event to set a call day with their message, but that is harder after the fact than if the last thing we had said, with a flier, was “Call the Congressman on Friday!” and perhaps did a role play of the call. 

In the main we accomplished what we set out to do: reach out to and comfort the Haitian community, deepen our relationships there, do some clear anti-imperialist political education, and set the table for whatever comes next.

We’re ready.

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