By NAN Staff Writer

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. Sept. 10, 2024: As Republican VP candidate and Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance spread a baseless claim that Haitian migrants in springfield, Ohio, have been eating cats, as well as ducks and geese, Haitians for Trump, led by Madgie Nicolas, remains silent.

Madgie Nicolas, r., of Haitians for Trump, with Donald Trump

The claim by Vance, “… that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country” has gone viral. The House Judiciary GOP, Sen. Ted Cruz and Elon Musk, the owner of X, also posted about the claim on Monday. Cruz, a Texas Republican, posted a meme on X showing two cats holding each other, with text that reads “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”

Nicolas, who states on her Instagram profile that is a “former Advisor to 45th President and Chair @haitianfortrumpofficial” most recently held a rally for Trump in Florida. She claims she has served on several political campaigns, including Presidential, Gubernatorial, Congressional, and local campaigns at every level and was an Appointee and Surrogate for the 45th President Donald J. Trump on Black Voices for Trump.

But in light of the racist attacks she remains silent. She has dismissed racist attacks by Trump in the past by saying “it’s a dirty fight” and “Democrats tend to play the victim.”

Officials in Springfield, Ohio, said they have not received any credible reports of Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets, despite viral claims on social media that have been amplified by Republican vice presidential nominee Vance and others.

Haitian American Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick called Vance’s recent comments “a vile, racist lie” and “beneath the dignity of any public office, let alone the Senate or the Vice Presidency.”

“It’s disgusting and disgraceful that someone seeking the nation’s second-highest office would stoop to such baseless, hateful rhetoric,” she stated. “Instead of peddling these falsehoods, Vance would be better suited to continue writing his fictional tales and testing out his sofa. This is just another page from the same old Republican playbook using fear, division, and racism to distract from their lack of real solutions for the American people. We deserve better, and J.D. Vance has no place in the Senate, let alone the White House.”

The Congressional Black Caucus has so far not issued any statements on the issue.

Meanwhile, on Google, nasty reviews began populating the review section of the Springfield Haitian orgaqnization, Haitian Community Help & Support Center, a non-profit organization that was founded on December 12, 2023 there. “Thanks for importing people who are eating neighborhood animals and wildlife,” posted Benjamin Harrison while Dawn Bailey posted: “they hold terrible cook-outs, and for some reason my bike gets stolen every time i come here.”

Haitians In Springfield

Immigrants from Haiti who have attained legal status under the Temporary Protected Status program have moved into Springfield in the last five years, and the estimates grow monthly, with city officials now saying the number could be 15,000 to 20,000 new residents among a population that had numbered just under 60,000 prior.

Situated in an industrial stretch of the midwestern United States known as the Rust Belt, Springfield was once a leading manufacturing hub, home to major printing and machinery companies.

But when the factories started to shutter, the city shrank. One third of Springfield’s population has moved away since the 1980s.

So when hundreds — then thousands — of Haitians started moving the Springfield, the city of 60,000 people got the population boost it was crying out for.

An estimated 4,000 to 7,000 Haitians have arrived in recent years, according to officials on the Springfield City Commission. Overall, the number of Haitian-born residents in the US has reached 730,780, according to the 2022 census.

Many escaped poverty and violence. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and the proliferation of gangs, particularly in the Port-au-Prince area, have forced thousands of people to flee. Some have used immigration pathways like the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programme to travel to the US.

At first, Springfield welcomed the new arrivals. In 2014, the city launched a Welcome Springfield campaign designed to attract foreign-born residents and boost the local economy.

Haitians started to fill labour shortages at local farms and businesses like Dole Fresh Vegetables, one of the largest produce companies in the world. Caribbean cafes opened in shopping plazas where supermarkets had closed. And Haitian families started to pack events like the annual Clark County Fair, filling the air with the sounds of Haitian Creole.

But the demographic changes in Springfield prompted a backlash — one that reached a crescendo in late August 2023. It was 8:15am on a Tuesday morning when Hermanio Joseph, a 35-year-old Haitian national, drove a 2010 Honda Odyssey minivan into oncoming traffic.

A school bus was headed in the opposite direction, with dozens of children on board heading to their first day of class for the school year. One would never arrive.

Eleven-year-old Aiden Clark was thrown from the bus as it veered off the roadway and flipped. He died at the scene. Twenty-three other children were injured, including one seriously. Joseph was ultimately charged with two felonies: involuntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide.

Springfield erupted with grief at the news of the accident. Some residents channelled their outrage towards the Haitian community as a whole.

The anger came close to spilling over at a City Commission meeting on August 29, where Mayor Warren Copeland struggled to keep order. “Just be quiet, OK?” he snapped during one outburst.

For nearly two hours, residents came to the podium to speak. Some warned of an invasion of Haitians and the crime they allegedly would bring. Another person raged that the Haitian flag had been raised at City Hall as part of the Flag Day celebrations. Police officers stationed around the room shifted uneasily from foot to foot.

“I want to know: Who’s bussing them in? Who’s responsible for that, and who can stop them from coming?” one resident asked, echoing rumours that Haitian migrants had been arriving en masse on buses.

One woman who stood up to speak suggested that Springfield had become a “sanctuary city”, a term used to describe municipalities that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. City officials reassured her it had not.

“There are people who are here that are not native Springfielders,” she continued, as another audience member shouted, “Illegals!” She replied, “Exactly.”

Some pleaded with the community to be tolerant. Rob Rue — a city commissioner who was recently elected to succeed Copeland as mayor — reminded the crowd, “Reckless driving is not just in the immigrant community.”

“There’s a lot of new people in our community,” Rue told the rumbling audience. “I get that. It’s a concern. Because there is cultures clashing.”

Even the parents of the 11-year-old child killed in the crash called for an end to the anger in a public statement in October.

“We do not want our son’s name to be associated with the hate that’s being spewed at these meetings,” Danielle and Nathan Clark wrote. “Aiden embraced different cultures and would insist you do the same.”

Mayor Rob Rue told residents at the last commission meeting the city did not know about the possibility of a large immigrant population coming but said a “network of businesses knew what was coming.”

He said the city’s Immigrant Accountability Response Team that formed last fall has discovered the possibility companies “knew they were going to make an effort to bring in individuals who were crossing the border.”

Rue said he was upset the city did not get a chance to plan for the immigrants.

“Springfield is now saturated,” he said.

In April, Rue and two other Springfield officials — Bryan Heck, city manager, and Jason Via, deputy director of public safety and operations — went to Washington, D.C., to meet with representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and the U.S. Department of Labor to ask how the federal government can help.