BWhile Donald Trump made baseless and dangerous claims that immigrants in Ohio were eating other people’s pets before millions of viewers at Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Johnson Salomon, a Haitian-American who moved to Springfield in 2020, watched cartoons with his children before putting them to bed.
He got a text from a friend telling him to tune in to the debate, and when he read the headlines about the comments made by the former president and Republican candidate for the November election, he was completely shocked.
“It was a false claim. I couldn’t believe that such a senior official could make such a claim,” Salomon said.
Trump’s running mate JD Vance, Elon Musk and prominent Ohio Republicans had already spread false rumors claiming that Haitian immigrants were killing and eating pets in Springfield, a working-class city of 60,000 in western Ohio. But the rumors that made Salomon and other Haitians fear violence and discrimination did not come from them.
They were first distributed online in August on social platforms used by right-wing extremists and the neo-Nazi hate group Blood Tribe.
Springfield officials and police say they have no credible reports of immigrants inflicting injuries on pets. They suspect the story may have originated in Canton, Ohio, where an American woman with no known ties to Haiti was arrested in August for allegedly trampling a cat to death and then eating it.
But that hasn’t stopped Republican politicians from scapegoating Springfield’s 15,000 Haitian immigrants as Trump and others try to make immigration the focus of their fall campaigns. In addition to Tuesday’s debate, Trump held a press conference on Friday where he ranted without evidence about how Haitians came to Springfield “and destroyed the place.”
When increasing numbers of Haitian immigrants began arriving in Springfield in 2017 to work in local fruit and vegetable packing and processing factories, some believed the new residents could help the city regain its former strength as a once-thriving manufacturing center. Once home to major agricultural equipment manufacturers in the mid-20th century, Springfield has lost a quarter of its population since the 1960s.
“They came to us for one reason: They were looking for opportunities to figure out how to work,” said Casey Rollins, executive director of the Springfield branch of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, of those who came to the Ohio city from Haiti.
“So we brought together immigration lawyers and interpreters to figure out how we could help them get jobs. We bring them online and let them apply (for work permits). We wanted workers here (in Springfield) – they want to work.”
Haitians and immigrants from Central American countries were in high demand at Dole Fresh Vegetables in Springfield – where they were hired to clean and package fruits and vegetables – and at automobile plants whose owners were desperate for workers due to a labor shortage resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
New Caribbean restaurants and food trucks have opened all over south Springfield, where once-deserted neighborhoods are now bustling with residents. A popular Haitian radio station has been broadcasting for several years. And every May, thousands flock to Haitian Flag Day, celebrated in a local park.
But the overflow of new arrivals is also putting a strain on the area’s hospitals and schools, angering many locals. The outrage reached a peak last August, when an 11-year-old boy was thrown from a school bus and killed after the driver swerved to avoid an oncoming car driven by a Haitian immigrant who did not have an Ohio driver’s license.
The child’s death fueled anger and racism on Facebook and at Springfield City Commission meetings, where public comments about immigration often lasted more than an hour. Locals angered by the growing immigrant community wondered if they were being taken over — if Springfield had become ground zero for the baseless “great replacement theory.”
Right-wing extremists soon took advantage of the unrest in Springfield.
Armed neo-Nazis from the Blood Tribe — a hardline white supremacist group, according to the Anti-Defamation League — raised swastika flags and marched down a prominent downtown street in August while a jazz and blues festival was taking place nearby.
A witness to the march, who declined an interview with the Guardian because he feared for his family’s safety after his identity was exposed online by far-right extremists, reported that members of the group pointed guns at cars and told people to “go the fuck back to Africa”.
However, a Springfield police spokesman appeared to downplay the incident, telling local media that the hate group’s march was “just a small, peaceful protest.”
A few days later, a leading member of the Blood Tribe, who identified himself as Nathaniel Higgers but whose real name was Drake Berentz, spoke at a Springfield City Commission meeting.
“I’ve come to issue a warning. Stop what you’re doing before it’s too late,” Berentz told Springfield Mayor Rob Rue. “With every Haitian you bring in, crime and cruelty will only increase.”
Berentz was immediately expelled from school for making threats. Nevertheless, Springfield City Hall, a school and other government buildings were evacuated Thursday morning due to a bomb threat.
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The same group marched in South Dakota and Tennessee this year.
Last year, when the organization showed up to protest a drag storytime event in Wadsworth, Ohio, where white supremacists gave Nazi salutes and chanted “Sieg Heil,” it reportedly established a branch in the state. Last year, Blood Tribe members were expelled from Maine after attempting to establish a compound and Nazi training camp in the rural northeast of the state.
“Blood Tribe celebrated Donald Trump bringing up the lie (of immigrants killing cats) during the debate,” said Maria Bruno of Ohioans Against Extremism, a nonprofit founded last month in part because of the rising number of extremists in Ohio. “They’re thrilled that there are politicians willing to repeat their arguments.”
JD Vance has regularly claimed in recent weeks’ campaign that “illegal immigrants” are “causing chaos throughout Springfield.” Ohio’s Republican Attorney General Dave Yost said he would direct his office to “explore legal options to prevent the federal government from sending unlimited numbers of immigrants into Ohio communities.”
However, the vast majority of Haitians in Springfield are in the U.S. legally, having been granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) due to the violence and unrest in their homeland. Citizens of 16 countries, including Afghanistan and Myanmar, are eligible for TPS. TPS is not a path to U.S. citizenship and is only valid for 18 months, after which it must be renewed by the Department of Homeland Security for the status holder to remain in the country legally.
“They’re entrepreneurs, they want to innovate,” Rollins said of the Haitians in Springfield. “They just work excessively as soon as they’re allowed to.”
But in Springfield, many Haitians have been targeted.
In December, a Springfield man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for hate crimes after attacking eight Haitians in early 2023. Last year, the local Haitian church was broken into and vandalized twice. Longtime black residents of Springfield reported being verbally attacked on the city’s streets because they were mistaken for members of the Haitian community.
The effect is clearly visible.
“When I drive through South Springfield, where a lot of Haitians live, you usually see people walking around the streets, in the Haitian markets and in the restaurants,” Salomon said.
“I have seen a lot fewer people in the last few days.”
Rollins said she had received threats that the St. Vincent de Paul branch would be destroyed because of its support of the Haitians.
“People write to me saying I destroyed Springfield,” she said. “We’re just trying to help people.”
