An Ohio city reshaped by Haitian immigrants lands in an unwelcome spotlight

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Many cities have been reshaped by immigrants in the last few years without attracting much notice. Not Springfield, Ohio.

Its story of economic renewal and related growing pains has been thrust into the national conversation in a presidential election year — and maliciously distorted by false rumors that Haitian immigrants are eating their neighbors’ pets. Donald Trump amplified those lies during Tuesday’s nationally televised debate, exacerbating some residents' fears about growing divisiveness in the predominantly white, blue-collar city of about 60,000.

At the city’s Haitian Community Help and Support Center on Wednesday, Rose-Thamar Joseph said many of the roughly 15,000 immigrants who arrived in the past few years were drawn by good jobs and the city’s relative affordability. But a rising sense of unease has crept in as longtime residents increasingly bristle at newcomers taking jobs at factories, driving up housing costs, worsening traffic and straining city services.

“Some of them are talking about living in fear. Some of them are scared for their life,” Joseph said.

A “Welcome To Our City” sign hangs from a parking garage downtown, where a coffee shop, bakery and boutique line Springfield's main drag, North Fountain Street. A flag advertising “CultureFest,” the city's annual celebration of unity through diversity, waves from a pole nearby.

Melanie Flax Wilt, a Republican commissioner in the county where Springfield is located, said she has been pushing for community and political leaders to “stop feeding the fear.”

“After the election and everybody’s done using Springfield, Ohio, as a talking point for immigration reform, we are going to be the ones here still living through the challenges and coming up with the solutions,” she said.

Ariel Dominique, executive director of the Haitian American Foundation for Democracy, said she laughed at first at the absurdity of the false claims. But seeing the comments repeated on national television by the former president was painful.

“It is so unfair and unjust and completely contrary to what we have contributed to the world, what we have contributed to this nation for so long,” Dominique said.

The falsehoods about Springfield's Haitian immigrants were spread online by Trump's running mate, JD Vance, on the eve of Tuesday's debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It's part of a timeworn American political tradition of casting immigrants as outsiders.

“This is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame,” Trump said at the debate after repeating the falsehoods. When challenged by ABC News moderator David Muir over the false claims, Trump held firm, saying “people on television” said their dogs were eaten, but he offered no evidence.

Officials in Springfield have tried to tamp down the misinformation by saying there have been no credible or detailed reports of any pets being abducted or eaten. State leaders are trying to help address some of the real challenges facing the city.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, said Tuesday he would add more law enforcement and health care resources to an aid package the state has already provided to Springfield.

Many Haitians have come to the U.S. to flee poverty and violence. They have embraced President Joe Biden's new and expanded legal pathways to enter, and have shunned illegal crossings, accounting for only 92 border arrests out of more than 56,000 in July, the latest data available.

The Biden administration recently announced an estimated 300,000 Haitians in the U.S. could remain in the country at least through February 2026, with eligibility for work authorization, under a law called Temporary Protected Status. The goal is to spare people from being deported to countries in turmoil.

Springfield, about 45 miles from the state capital of Columbus, suffered a steep decline in its manufacturing sector toward the end of the last century, and its population shrank as a result. But its downtown has been revitalized in recent years as more Haitians arrived and helped meet the rising demand for labor as the economy emerged from the pandemic. Officials say Haitians now account for about 15% of the population.

The city was shaken last year when a minivan slammed into a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy. The driver was a Haitian man who recently settled in the area and was driving without a valid license. During a city commission meeting on Tuesday, the boy's parents condemned politicians' use of their son's death to stoke hatred.

Last week, a post on the social media platform X shared what looked like a screengrab of a social media post apparently out of Springfield. The post claimed without evidence that the person’s “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” saw a cat hanging from a tree to be butchered and eaten, outside a house where it claimed Haitians lived. It was accompanied by a photo of a Black man carrying what appeared to be a goose by its feet.

On Monday, Vance posted on X: “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” The next day, he posted again, saying his office had received inquiries from Springfield residents who said “their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants.”

Long-time Springfield resident Chris Hazel, who knows the park and neighborhood where the pet and goose abductions were purported to have happened, called the claims “preposterous.”

“It reminds me of when people used to accuse others and outsiders as cannibals. It’s dehumanizing a community," he said of the accusations against the city's Haitian residents.

Sophia Pierrilus, the daughter of a former Haitian diplomat who moved to the Ohio capital of Columbus 15 years ago and is now an immigrant advocate, agreed, calling it all political.

“My view is that’s their way to use Haitians as a scapegoat to bring some kind of chaos in America,” she said.

With its rising population of immigrants, Springfield is hardly an outlier. So far this decade, immigration has accounted for almost three-quarters of U.S. population growth, with 2.5 million immigrants arriving in the United States between 2020 and 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Population growth is an important driver of economic growth.

“The Haitian immigrants who started moving to Springfield the last few years are the reason why the economy and the labor force has been revitalized there,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, which provides legal and social services to immigrants across the U.S.

Now, she said, Haitians in Springfield have told her that, out of fear, they are considering leaving the city.

___ Spagat reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida, and Noreen Nasir in New York, contributed.