Residents of the suburban Ohio town, now under the national spotlight because of being mentioned during the ABC News presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, are currently seeking assistance as they have been dealing with the consequences of mass immigration for years. This includes a housing crunch, a rise in car wrecks and other alleged crimes and hardships.
According to reports, Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck sent a letter in July to GOP Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Tim Scott of South Carolina, asking for federal assistance.
"Twenty-five thousand people have invaded our sleepy little community here in Springfield," Barron Seelig, a local non-denominational pastor who is involved in helping feed and provide assistance to the town's homeless community, told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF).
"We're 55,000 people here and they sent an additional 25,000 people here," Seelig continued. "Our resources are taxed and people's nerves are on end."
The pastor added that most of the wrecked cars in the lot were there because Haitian nationals "don't know how to drive" and claimed that there were accidents every day because of it.
Back in August 2023, Hermanio Joseph, a Haitian national driving a minivan without a license, swerved in front of a school bus. This caused the death of 11-year-old Aiden Clark and injured about a dozen other students on their first day of school. A judge in May sentenced Joseph to more than 13 years in prison for the crash.
Meanwhile, Zillow data indicate that median rental prices in the town have spiked over the past year, making it more expensive to live in an area that is historically known for its low cost of living.
"I've been here since about March," said one homeless woman who had just arrived at a local soup kitchen with her daughter to grab a free meal. "We've been trying to find a place, but we can't find a place at all because the Haitians always get all the housing."
According to her, they can't find housing because all the housing has gone to foreign nationals. "I had never in my life seen a Haitian, didn't even know what a Haitian was until I came here to Springfield and it's ridiculous," she said.
Apart from bad driving and housing priority, other common complaints by locals about their new Haitian neighbors were constant late-night parties and public debauchery. A resident claimed he observed from his house migrants picking up women and having sex with them out in public, sometimes even in front of children. (Related: More horrifying details emerge about the 20,000 Haitian migrants INVADING Springfield, Ohio: Residents are fleeing due to overwhelming VIOLENCE.)
The Biden-Harris administration in June announced an extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 300,00 Haitians, giving them deportation protections in the U.S. as their home nation continues to experience upheaval. The White House already designated Haitians with TPS in 2021 and renewed it in late 2022. The latest order gave Haitian nationals deportation protection until early 2026.
Haitians are also included in a mass parole initiative known as the CHNV program, which allows hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela legal authorization to fly into the country.
Springfield's poverty rate was twice the national average in 2022 as Haitians began arriving in large numbers, according to NPR. Seelig described Springfield as "one of the highest in the nation" for drug overdose deaths in recent years. The pastor reiterated that the town is unable to handle the crisis on its own.
"We're tired," Seelig said. "Send help. Help us fix this."
Springfield police deny reports of pets stolen and/or eaten
After Trump's explosive claim that Haitians are eating pets in Ohio during the debate, which was followed by a viral post shared by no less than the X CEO Elon Musk supporting the claim, the Springfield Police Division said on Monday, Sept. 9, that they have received no reports related to pets being stolen and eaten.
"In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community," a released statement indicated.
Another post has also become controversial as it claimed that a pet cat in the Ohio town had been found hanging from a branch near a Haitian neighbor's home and was being carved up for a meal. The user, who posted it, also said that "Rangers" and police told them that they have been doing it at Snyder Park, too, with ducks and geese.
Springfield Mayor Rob Rue on Monday said claims of geese or ducks from parks being killed and eaten are unsubstantiated, according to a Springfield News-Sun report.
In interviews last month, a city official said they had not been able to verify any of those reports and described them as "false" and "misleading" information amplified by social media.
DCNF visited Springfield and interviewed several residents about the situation. No locals said they had personally witnessed any individuals eating house pets but they adamantly said that the massive influx of migrants has become a problem.
Check out InvasionUSA.news for updates on migration policies and the current burgeoning migrant crisis.
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