Many Haitians are looking to emigrate to the United States in the face of violence, hunger and death in their home country. The U.S. has a long history of housing refugees. The Safe Haven Museum in Oswego was a place where refugees from Europe were welcomed and housed in the 1940s.
And it's a story unlike any other in the United States.
“Fort Ontario ... is really the birthplace of U.S. refugee policy. It's where the first group of refugees was allowed inside the United States, outside the 1924 quota system,” said Paul Lear with the Safe Haven Museum.
Lear has spent years studying the history of Fort Ontario and helped create the Safe Haven Museum.
“This is literally where the Holocaust came to America. This is where everyday Americans, Oswegonians, got to meet the victims of the of the Holocaust,” said Lear, pointing to a photo of people waiting along a fence.
It’s been 80 years since almost 1,000 Europeans came to Oswego at the invitation of President Franklin Roosevelt. They stayed at Fort Ontario behind a fence, attending school, creating scout troops and starting families. Decades later, people are still seeking refuge in the United States — including Haitian people that have settled in Ohio, where false rumors were spread about them eating pets by former President and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“The refugees were accused of getting everything. All these comforts, like steak and ice cream. And whereas everything's being rationed in the United States in World War II, and these people who live behind a fence are being accused of having all these luxuries ... [it] simply wasn't true,” said Lear of the European refugees.
Temporary protected status for Haitians will continue into February 2026. European refugees arrived in Oswego during the summer of 1944, and had to sign an agreement they would return to their home country after the war.
“It's the summer [of] 1945. There's a lot of pressure to send the refugees back ... so these people live their life in limbo. Very much like the Haitian refugees are right now, uncertain futures, which is very troublesome for humans, American or wherever,” said Lear.
Eventually, the Europeans were allowed to stay in America and left the camp in February 1946. One of those refugees is Doris Schechter.
“She was six years old with her family mother, father, and some others. She became a great restaurateur in New York City. And she's written several cookbooks … refugees, most of them, went off to great successful careers in the United States, different backgrounds. And she is really symbolic of it,” said Lear.
“All these people that were lost, the Holocaust, what contributions they could have made to human society. Just horrific, the Holocaust, and ... these refugees coming from Haiti and other places, they can be an important part of our future. And they're not going to get that in their countries where there's turmoil, death, strife and war."