Haitian Americans in New Jersey are pushing back against former President Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance for their inflammatory and now-infamous comments about Haitian immigrants. The false claims about migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating people’s pets sparked outrage from those in and outside the Haitian community.

NJ Spotlight News spoke with East Orange Councilman Bergson Leneus, the first Haitian American to be elected to the council in East Orange where the state’s largest concentration of Haitians reside. New Jersey is home to the 4th largest population of Haitian residents in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“More than anything, it’s emotional because of our history in this country and because of the things have taken place back in the 90s,” said Leneus.

“There was … a rallying cry from the Haitian community [in the 1990s] with regard to baseless lies and xenophobic rhetoric centered around the HIV/AIDS epidemic, that Haitians were the originators of this serious disease,” said Leneus. “There was a strong fight against it and this recent attack is taking us back to that place. It’s stirring up a lot of old and hurtful memories, and it is really galvanizing the community to fight and stand against this once again.”