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Haiti clearly holds a place in the heart of Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. He’s been to the country at least 25 times with his wife, he said at a press conference Monday in Springfield.
He helped found a school in Haiti that bears the name of his daughter, Becky, who died decades ago in a car accident.
He respects the Haitians who have come to the US legally and found work in Springfield.
“They’re legal,” he said on “PBS Newshour” Tuesday night. “They want to work. In fact, they want to work overtime,” he said.
Further, DeWine said the Haitians found Springfield because business owners there were having trouble finding workers after the Covid-19 pandemic.
But while he is defending the Haitians legally working in Springfield with Temporary Protected Status due to violence and a humanitarian crisis after storms and an earthquake there, DeWine wants to separate them from the larger immigration and border debate fueling the Republican political argument in 2024.
“The immigration issue, and the border issue, obviously, is fair game,” DeWine said in the PBS interview, and it’s a refrain he has repeated in press conferences and interviews in recent days.
But that’s a different issue than what’s going on in Springfield, he said.
Without specifically criticizing former President Donald Trump or Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, by name, DeWine said their insistence on spreading false rumors of animal abuse by the Haitian community is “very hurtful for these men and women who work very, very hard.”
Their comments are also having an effect on the rest of the community. Ohio state troopers are in Springfield schools this week after scores of bomb threats – some coming from abroad and some from in the US – put the community on edge.
When he was asked if the comments from Trump and Vance were fueling the bomb threats, DeWine deflected.
“The people who are making these threats are the bad people. They’re the wrong people,” he said.
There’s no indication that either Trump or Vance will stop talking about the unfounded rumors of animal abuse.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday.
Vance later clarified: “I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it. I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield.”
And on this point, there seems to be an ocean of disconnect between Republican leaders in Ohio, who argue that Haitians filled a desperate need in Springfield, and Trump and Vance, who argue, as Vance did, that “thousands of residents have had their lives destroyed” by the arrival of the Haitians.
Like DeWine, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue has also tried very hard to correct the record on the role Haitians are playing in Springfield. Rue chose his words very carefully during an interview Tuesday when CNN’s Boris Sanchez asked if the attention brought by Vance’s story was helpful.
“It’s brought a lot of negative attention to our community,” Rue said, adding that he was doing so many interviews to make sure that people are “listening to the real and true story of Springfield.”
While Rue and DeWine have both said the community has admittedly had strain on its infrastructure – everything from staffing the schools to making sure the population is protected through vaccination to getting people driver’s licenses – there is also a larger story.
“We are a beautiful city. We are not a horrible city. We are not falling apart. We have strain and stress and we’re trying to figure it out, but none of this attention that has been brought upon Springfield, Ohio, is helping us,” Rue said, noting there were state troopers in his city’s schools only because of threats received in the past week.
At a press conference Tuesday, Rue and DeWine discouraged Trump from making a trip to the city.
DeWine said the city and state are stretched resource-wise, but that “if President Trump makes that decision to come here, he will be welcomed.”
Rue put it differently, saying a visit by any presidential candidate “would be an extreme strain on our resources, so it would be fine with me if they decided not to make that stop right now.”
JD Vance defends baseless rumor about Haitian immigrants eating pets
Vance said, “It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it. I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’ policies. Her policies did that. But yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris’ policies.”
The city of Springfield notes on its website that approximately 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants live in Clark County, and that Haitian immigrants are there legally as part of a parole program that allows citizens and lawful residents to apply to have their family members from Haiti come to the United States.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, flatly denied the rumor on Sunday and praised the immigrants for their positive influence on the community.
“No. Absolutely not,” DeWine said on ABC’s “This Week” when asked whether he’d seen any evidence of immigrants eating pets.
“Let me tell you what we do know, though. What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal,” the governor said. “They came to Springfield to work.”
On Tuesday, Vance said it was possible the claim about Haitian immigrants might not be true, but he encouraged his followers to continue posting “cat memes.”
Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said Sunday that the city is going through “a very difficult time,” adding that it would be helpful if politicians who amplified plainly untrue rumors “understood the weight of their words.” He said city officials, including city commissioners, have received threats for the past three consecutive days.
“We have been shined under a spotlight that is so bright that it’s hard to see some of the things that we actually need to be focusing on, and that’s been difficult for sure,” the mayor told Bash on “State of the Union,” adding that “we’re concerned about the security in our community, and we’re focused on that right now.”
The city hall in Springfield was forced to close due to a bomb threat on Thursday. Two elementary schools were evacuated Friday “based on information received from the Springfield Police Division,” the Springfield City School District announced. Two local hospitals were also forced into lockdown due to bomb threats Saturday, according to statements sent to CNN.
Vance rejected the idea that his rhetoric has led to bomb threats.
“There is nothing that I have said that has led to threats against these hospitals, these hospitals, the bomb threats and so forth,” Vance said.
“The Springfield mayor, he’s dealing with a lot of terrible things. I certainly sympathize with the guy, and we’re going to try to help him out. But he did not accuse me of inciting a bomb threat. He just didn’t,” Vance said later in the interview.
“All that I’ve done is surface the complaints of my constituents, people who are suffering because of Kamala Harris’ policies. Are we not allowed to talk about these problems because some psychopaths are threatening violence?” he added.
Rue said he has not heard from Vance directly, “and that’s fine,” but said the senator and others propagating the rumors should know authorities in Springfield are telling the truth.
DeWine acknowledged that Springfield was having some issues adjusting to the influx of mostly Haitian immigrants through the federal immigration program, but he said officials were working on them.
“When you go from a population of 58,000 and add 15,000 people onto that, you’re going to have some challenges and some problems,” the Ohio governor said in his ABC interview. “And we’re addressing those. We’re working on those every single day.”
Vance said that he is hearing directly from constituents about these concerns, bringing up one specifically about geese.
“My constituents have brought approximately a dozen separate concerns to me. Ten of them are verifiable and confirmable, and a couple of them I talk about because my constituents are telling me firsthand that they’re seeing these things. So I have two options, Dana, I can ignore them, which is what the American media has done for years to this community, or I can actually talk about what people are telling me,” Vance said.
“My attitude is, listen to my constituents. Sometimes they’re going to say things that people don’t like, but they’re saying things that people don’t like because their town has been overwhelmed, and it’s my job to try to fight for them and to protect them,” Vance said.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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