On September 16, 2024, a mural was unveiled in an alleyway in downtown Springfield, Ohio.
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wrote in an op-ed published Friday that unfounded claims made by former President Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, undermine the Republican Party’s messaging on the border.
“The Biden Administration’s failure to control the southern border is a very important issue that Trump and Vance have spoken about and one that the American people are rightfully deeply concerned about,” DeWine, a Republican, wrote. The New York Times.
“But their verbal attacks against Haitians who are in the United States legally undermine and cloud the arguments that should be won on the border,” he said.
The perception that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have failed to stem the influx of asylum seekers at the southern border has long been a key message for Republicans, as well as President Trump’s reelection campaign.
Trump’s latest immigration claims have brought the city of Springfield, Ohio, into the national spotlight after he and Sen. Vance, R-Ohio, spread an unfounded rumor that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating the city’s residents’ pets.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine takes part in a sound check at Fiserv Forum ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention on July 14, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Andrew Caballero Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Governor DeWine and local officials have repeatedly denied the allegations.
“As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator J.D. Vance, I am saddened that they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage legal immigrants who live in Springfield,” Gov. DeWine, a Springfield native, wrote Friday.
“Such remarks hurt the city and the people who live there, and hurt those who have spent their whole lives there.”
For days after Trump and Vance spread the unfounded rumor, the Trump campaign knew it was false. The Wall Street Journal Dozens of bomb threats forced the evacuation and closure of Springfield city schools.
Governor DeWine announced Monday that Ohio police would begin searching city schools every morning and night in response to threats that authorities found to be all fake, including those targeting City Hall and a local hospital.
Vance spokesman William Martin told NBC News that the Republican vice presidential nominee is “pleased” that DeWine has endorsed the Trump-Vance campaign, but that Vance and DeWine “do not always see eye to eye on every issue.”
In his op-ed, DeWine highlighted the role Haitian immigrants played in Springfield’s economic recovery after “tough times” in the 1980s and 1990s.
“But now, Springfield is experiencing a resurgence in manufacturing and job creation, thanks in part to a dramatic influx of Haitian immigrants who have come to the city over the past three years to fill jobs.”
“They’re there legally. They’re there to work.”
