“Times are heavy. The subject we are discussing tonight is heavy. We’re in a heavy moment. It is so important in these times to tap into a sense of hope,” the mother of two said, sitting in front of a colorful wall displaying her children’s artwork.

“One thing that’s giving you hope right now, okay, let’s turn on the chat. Let’s see them,” Paris prompted.

“My children.”
“Minnesotans.”
“Community.”
“Family.”
“Decency.”
“Grandchildren.”
“Liam Ramos.”

Red Wine & Blue, an organization that Paris founded in 2019 to build a diverse “sisterhood” of suburban women to fight political extremism, hosted the call just hours before Tuesday night’s slated expiration of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, an immigration designation that has allowed some 350,000 Haitians to live and work legally in the country. Springfield, a central Ohio city of 60,000 where as many as one in four residents are Haitian, was bracing for an influx of federal immigration enforcement officers akin to the Trump administration’s violent crackdown in Minnesota. Paris, who lives outside of Cleveland, about a three-hour drive northeast of Springfield, tempered the hopeful tone at the start of the meeting with political reality.

“Last night, a federal judge blocked the Trump administrationfrom ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians living and working legally in America, and the fight is far from over. The Department of Homeland Security immediately stated that they are taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we know what that means: With this Supreme Court, Haitians could lose their status in really a matter of weeks,” Paris said.

“We’re going to talk about what’s next legally in all this, we’re going to talk about what we can learn from Minneapolis, and we’re also going to talk about how we can stay safe. Finally, perhaps most importantly of all, we are going to be giving you opportunities to take real action tonight,” she continued.

Women have been leading the opposition to Donald Trump’s second presidency, playing key roles in resistance efforts and forming groups to counter the administration’s policies on immigration and more. During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly targeted the Haitians in Springfield with lies — as did now Vice President JD Vance, an Ohioan — to bolster his calls for a crackdown on even legal immigration. The president said he would “protect” women from immigrants, “whether the women like it or not,” despite polls showing that women did not rank immigration among their top concerns, nor did they trust Trump the most on the issue.

A PBS News/NPR/Marist Poll released Thursday showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans now believe Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has gone too far in its methods after federal agents killed Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. When broken down by gender, just 26 percent of women said they approved of how ICE was doing compared to 40 percent of men, the poll showed.