“I hope and pray that Springfield is not the next Minneapolis after this next week, but the reality is in front of us, so we’re going to do our best to equip ourselves with the information and our rights as best we can regardless if the other side honors that or not,” said Samantha Searls with Ignite Peace, which organized the event with the Amos Project and the church.
Church leaders, like Pastor Michael Young, celebrated the Amos Project’s part in encouraging city officials to pass a resolution urging ICE officers to follow local rules for law enforcement by carrying IDs and not wearing masks.
Ignite Peace advocates for peace and “challenges unjust systems” while promoting a nonviolent society, Searls said. The Amos Project is a collective of faith leaders, grassroots organizers and other impacted people advocating for justice in community safety, housing, healthcare and wages. It emphasizes equity for all, especially Black women.
Know your rights
Searls shared numerous safety tips and rights every person has under the U.S. Constitution, particularly related to law and immigration enforcement.
She said the community should know their rights and exercise them, but brought up the two recent fatal immigration officer shootings of citizens in Minneapolis that have ignited national outrage and questions.
Searls said that while in Ohio a person must tell law enforcement their name, address and date of birth when asked, they have the right to remain silent afterward, as well as a right to legal representation. She urged all to stay calm in the face of law or immigration enforcement and to not interfere, advocating non-violence.
People should carry some form of identification and immigrants may want to carry a valid work permit or green card and proof they have been in the country for more than two years to avoid the expedited removal process, Searls said. Expired work permits or documents showing a person’s origin from another country should not be carried, she said.
ICE agents, as well as all levels of law enforcement, can only enter a private residence, business or private area of a house of worship with a judicial warrant, which means it was signed by a judge and not an immigration officer, Searls said. ICE warrants do not allow agents to enter a private property but do allow them to detain a person in public, she said.
Searls encouraged businesses and houses of worship to clearly label private areas to discourage immigration enforcement action without a judicial warrant.
She showed red cards that remind people of their rights on two sides, one in English and the other in a language of their choosing. These are available for printing at ilrc.org/redcards.
When ICE agents show up at a private residence or business, Searls said the occupant need not open the door to talk to officers, or open it period, without a judicial warrant.
Any violation of someone’s rights should be reported, and Searls pointed people to the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, which has a hotline at 419-777-4357.
If someone is “taken” or detained by immigration officers, Searls said others should learn all the details, consider notifying their embassy, locate them through ICE’s online detainee locator, find a lawyer and raise legal funds, consider funding their commissary and help any family left behind.
Searls said people can speak to the media to bring attention to these situations.
“The media is a powerful tool. Public opinion is shifting about what ICE is doing,” Searls said. “It is shifting because of you.”
Searls encouraged people to record everything; Ohio law allows residents to record all conversations in which they are involved regardless of whether other participants consent.
When recording ICE or other immigration officers, Searls said people should identify themselves and say they will stay and observe what the agent is doing. If observing a person being detained, Searls advised people to ask their name, advise them of their rights and to pass a message on to their family.
She also encouraged the formation of neighborhood watch groups. The Springfield G92 group, a coalition of churches and people of faith committed to immigrant advocacy, is forming school watch groups for schools throughout the district, organizers shared.
No one should lie about their immigration status and immigrants should consider showing lawful status documents in the hopes of avoiding detainment, Searls said.
Searls and others expressed concerns about a “period of authoritarianism” and encouraged people to care for each other and not get scared out of acting.
One participant in the session brought up concerns about immigration officers wearing masks and lacking identification. Another reminded attendees that they can call local police to check.
Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott at an NAACP event in December encouraged anyone with concerns in those situations to call local law enforcement and said that videos of those interactions could be helpful for local police.
Temporary Protected Status, the legal way in which many of Springfield’s 10-15,000 Haitians are in the country, was previously set to end after Tuesday, after the Biden administration extended it, but the Department of Homeland Security announced an official termination would happen Sept. 2, 2025, saying that conditions in Haiti had improved and its immigrants no longer meet the conditions for TPS.
A federal judge last year ruled that ending TPS was unlawful, blocking the program from ending early. TPS is still set to expire after Tuesday, as of now. Multiple lawsuits challenging the ending are ongoing.
If TPS status for Haitians is not renewed, hundreds of thousands of Haitian immigrants in the country will be living here illegally.
Pastor Leslie Jones, a lead organizer with the Amos Project, said she’s been working with the Springfield part of the state group for about a year-and-a-half to uplift and better the city as a whole, with a focus on the south side.
Rev. Adam Banks, pastor at First Baptist Church of Springfield, encouraged attendees to operate by the law of God, while comparing the current ways the law is interpreted to the Roman Empire.
“The law right now as it currently is being carried out is an instrument to create an us and a them,” Banks said, encouraging people to “remember where the laws of this land stand in in relation to the covenant that we have with our higher power, our God, our creator, our sustainer, a God who is loving and who gives us a spirit of power, not fear.”
He pointed to the Bible’s messages about “loving our neighbor” and defending “the oppressed,” the fatherless and the widows.
“Loving our neighbor means that we feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, that we welcome the stranger, that we clothe the naked, that we visit the sick and those in prison. Loving our neighbor means giving the worker their rightful wage. It means doing right by the foreigner as our ancestors did which when they were in the strange land,” Banks said. “And it means not giving in to this corrupt world. This is the law by which we operate.”
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