How an Ohio Town Landed in the Middle of the Immigration Debate... [View all]

Source-https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/us/springfield-ohio-school-bus-crash-haiti-immigrants.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Jk4.Tyo8.ZO-XPwqn78DO&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb


snip-"Haitians were new to the region. During the last census, in 2020, a little more than 58,000 people lived in Springfield, a town at the crossroads of America that had fallen on hard times and shed population as opportunity slipped away. But it has changed dramatically in recent years, as a boom in manufacturing and warehouse jobs attracted a swelling wave of immigrants, mainly from Haiti. City officials estimate that as many as 20,000 Haitians have arrived, most of them since the pandemic."


snip-"The city manager, Bryan Heck, explained that the Haitians were lawfully in the country. The police chief, Allison Elliott, said that Haitians were not responsible for the city’s yearslong struggle with crime such as retail theft. Commissioners said that they had come for job opportunities."


snip-"In a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in July, he {JD Vance}described Springfield as a town that was nearly a carbon copy of Middletown, where he grew up, except that it had now been “overwhelmed” by Haitians who were pushing up housing costs and collecting benefits.

“And you don’t have to believe, of course, that the 20,000, at least most of the 20,000 newcomers, are bad people” to recognize it as a problem, he said."


much more there