I am ashamed to say it, but Trump’s claim that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets reminds me so much of the way Haitians are treated in my home country, the Dominican Republic.

In the debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Trump claimed without evidence that members of an Ohio city’s growing Haitian community were “eating cats; they’re eating dogs … they’re eating pets.”

While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.

Jean Denis Saint-Félix, S.J.: “Nobody wants to stay in this hell. People are seeking ways to enter, no matter how, the United States,” even “knowing the danger and risks they go through.”

Sugar is not the only industry that exploits Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic, but it offers a unique lens through which to understand racism and xenophobia.

People who hope to escape Haiti’s cholera outbreak and life-threatening insecurity cannot wait for a more welcome climate to emerge in the United States.