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Why Springfield Ohio?
The population of Haiti is just under 12 million, and in the past few years around 300,000 of them have come to the United States. The population of Springfield, Ohio is around 58,000, and in the past few years, they have experienced a remarkably sudden and massive influx of new residents: 20,000 Haitians. So 7% of those who left Haiti for a better life in America moved to Springfield, Ohio.
Much has been written about this. Republicans are complaining that this could have a negative impact on the social structure and financial viability of Springfield. Democrats are rolling their eyes and saying that Haitians don’t eat cats. But I’m stuck on a question further upstream: How did Springfield, Ohio suddenly become such a popular destination for Haitians? Is it really possible that just spontaneously, for no reason, 20,000 Haitians woke up one morning and all said in unison, “You know, I’d love to move to Springfield, Ohio. Wherever that is.” Ok, so if we presume that all those individual Haitians didn’t decide on Springfield, then who did?
On a lark last week, one day in the office I asked every patient I saw if they had ever been to Springfield, Ohio. None of them had. What did they know about the town? Nothing, really. And remember, I practice in South Carolina. Surely the results of such a survey would be similar in Haiti. I presume most people in Haiti have never heard of Springfield. Heck, a lot of them have probably never heard of Ohio. So how did so many of them end up there?
Somebody just HAD to have done this intentionally. This must have been deliberate. Heck, just planning the transport issues involved must have been challenging. So this must have been carefully planned. Ok, fine. By who? Who decided on Springfield? And who planned all the logistics etc? That’s an enormous undertaking.
And why? Why Springfield? There are a lot of towns of similar size across America. Why Springfield, Ohio?
And how? Moving 20,000 people from various places in Haiti to a small town in the Midwest like Springfield would be very expensive. At $1,000 per airline ticket, that’s $20 million. Plus buses, food, communications, and what have you – it had to cost, what, $30 million – $40 million or so, for the entire operation. The Haitian immigrants themselves do not appear to be wealthy. Ok, so who paid for all that?
From there, the questions just keep coming. But I’m really just interested in those three.
Haitian immigrants cross the border at Juárez to request political asylum. David Peinado Romero via Shutterstock
Who, exactly, did this?
Who paid for it?
And why? Why Springfield, Ohio?
I would love to know the answers to those three questions.
And one more, come to think of it. Why isn’t our media interested in those questions? That would be interesting to know, as well.
Of course, instead of “Why Springfield?,” one could ask, “Why Haiti?” Whoever did this, why didn’t they decide to move 20,000 Brazilians to Springfield? Or Australians? Or Mexicans? How did they come up with Haiti?
Does anyone have any theories? I’d love to hear them.
This simply cannot be random. So how precisely did it happen?
Who did it?
Who paid for it?
Why Springfield, Ohio?
I appreciate your help in answering these simple questions.
Published in General
Because Ohio votes Republican in presidential elections.
Maybe they thought that they were such a small, non-influential community, that no one has ever heard from, the instigators could get away with it. Who’d complain. Good for Springfield speaking up. And curse the person who dropped this disaster on them.
As I recall, I saw an article that said the woke mayor of Springfield had led a program to
declare the city a sanctuary city. So essentially, the city government asked for the refugees.I will see if I can find the reference.
Edit: On doing a search, Springfield is not an official sanctuary city and I have not found the article I read. Even DuckDuckGo seems to only deliver up the left-wing sites like CNN, NYT, etc.
Why Haiti? Gang violence.
Why Springfield? Why not?
I figured it out. To be similarly challenged, NYC would need to have 1.3 million Haitians dropped on them. That would be no problem, right? Eric Adams would be begging for all that additional diversity, since it is a source of strength and all.
This doesn’t answer the question “Why Springfield, Ohio?”, but it does answer the question of “Why Ohio?”.
https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/ohio-gov-dewines-deep-connections-to-haiti-inform-response-to-springfield-controversy/M5HTIUUODNE4FIUPQ2AHDQSIHA/
Wow. Wow.
In a town of 58,000 people, someone just dropped off 20,000 more people?
I’m so glad you wrote this because I had no idea what this Springfield, Ohio, story was all about.
Wow.
My guess is that it was a plan concocted by the State Department and Catholic Charities.
There is some precedent for it. It sounds like the story of the Somalis who were left in Camden, Maine, in 2002. There have been some adjustments and a lot of pain and sorrow over the years because of this ridiculous action, but–and God bless the people in Camden for this outcome–the most recent story I saw said that they were working pretty well together.
Thank you for asking all the right questions.
Well, ok. But why not Kettering? Or Youngstown? Or Lorain? They all have about the same population as Springfield.
Why Springfield?
By the way, Catholic Charities and the Catholic Church in general have a large and positive presence in Haiti. My son worked as a photographer for one Catholic education group. He was hired to take some pictures for fundraising purposes at the local orphanage run by a church in the Boston area. He wrote about the experience for Ricochet back when he was member. He got this beautiful photograph:
I did not note the source but saw a report that there was hope the “newcomers” would provide workers for some industries that lacked them in that area of the state, and the local Chamber of Commerce had been on board with the Haitian immigration. They are there under some kind of framework where their admittance is apparently “legal.”
That does not take into account the poor judgment of allowing the surge in population by such a mammoth proportion, from 58,000 to 80,000 almost overnight.
Given that 20,000 is less than 0.2% of the total influx there are probably other towns with similar outcomes.
Maybe Springfield has just received the publicity.
Maybe the other cities are next.
Ohio Governor DeWine has connections to Haiti. He sponsors a school in Haiti.
South Carolina might not know anything about Springfield, OH, but South Carolina does know about plantations. What government (Federal + state + local) has done is create a giant plantation in Ohio. The government has paid to bring in thousands of laborers and worked with businesses to give them low paying jobs subsidized by tax payers who cover food and rent and medical. The citizens are left pay the price in terms of chaos in the classroom, chaos in the streets, chaos in the hospital, chaos in the parks, and chaos in the job market. Don’t forget that time that the Clinton’s raised $10 billion for Haiti and were the only ones to benefit.
I do not necessarily believe that there was some elaborate nefarious scheme to overwhelm Springfield with immigrants. This influx did occur over about 4 years.
I too had read that, at least initially, local industries needed workers, and recent Haitian immigrants provided a pool of potential workers. Countering a declining population.
I would not consider it unusual that once a small group of immigrants or a specific ethnic group finds success in a place, they attract others of the same ethnic group or from the same country. Word spreads among a group of people with information like “there are jobs in Springfield” or “rents are cheap in Springfield” or “the people of Springfield are friendly” and others of the same immigrant or ethnic group come to Springfield. It’s how other groups of immigrants came to be concentrated in particular geographic areas and/or industries. But those changes have traditionally occurred over many years, often decades, a few families at a time.
But I have also heard rumors that the businesses began to figure out that they could pay new Haitian immigrants less than they were paying locals. So the businesses saw advantages to bringing in yet more Haitian immigrants to displace local workers and drive wages down.
Although the influx of Haitian immigrants into Springfield has occurred over almost four years, that is still rather rapid in the grand scheme of things. So, it has driven up rents for housing and created stresses on the education system, the medical care system, the social services providers, and other social infrastructure. And of course, the immigrants come from a culture vastly different from the local culture. A large number of immigrants from Haiti is going to be different than if a bunch of people came into Springfield from a western European country like England. One of the conspicuous issue is that few of the immigrants have any experience with driving an automobile, yet once in Ohio start driving cars.
So, I don’t necessarily see a great conspiracy or plan to put 20,000 Haitian immigrants in the smallish town of Springfield, OH. But, the relatively sudden influx of 20,000 people from a foreign culture into a town of 58,000 Ohioans is inevitably going to create friction.
It doesn’t take much. A few people go there at random..,maybe attracted by job opportunities. If they have success it attracts their friends and family. Word gets out….and soon if you are in Haiti and k ow of someplace in the US … you know Springfield OH.
Something similar happened to the lovely Mrs E’s hometown of Hazelton, PA
Other towns are getting immigrants. Lima (pop. 35,000) mentions the influx, but gives no estimate as to how many there are. Findlay (pop. 41,000) mentions immigrants of around 1,000 – “many” of them from Haiti.
Those are all excellent questions, including the question of how to get answers to those questions. I’ve had some of those same questions myself. I’ve just about given up on getting answers to questions like this, though, no thanks to those who are more interested in jumping to conclusions than getting answers.
A bunch of the Somalis mentioned by Marci also overwhelmed Lewiston/Auburn, ME, and to some extent Portland. Yes, it’s mostly worked out but it was tough going for a long time. Whether it’s some .gov bad decision or an accidental outcome, it’s not good for newcomers or natives.
And imagine the shock of going from the Somali climate to Maine or Minnesota in the winter. I bet snow seemed magic, the first time, for about an hour.
At least one Somali-immigrant cop in Minneapolis wound up killing someone who had called 911 for help.
Not related to large influxes of people, but on individuals and some of the differences immigrants find:
We knew a woman who, although the pale-skinned, red haired daughter of a couple of Texans, had grown up in the Philippines (her father spent many years as a professor there). So, other than weather, she was well Americanized. We knew her in western New York state, after she had spent four years near Chicago. Even after several years, she still found any temperature below 75 degrees F “cold.” Her parents had not owned a car during her growing-up years, so matters car-related (especially maintenance) were foreign territory to her.
Our son went to college in far northern New York (Potsdam, not far from Fort Drumm, a few miles from the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Canadian Border; Montreal, Quebec, Canada was the nearest large city). One of his freshman classmates was from central Africa. She lasted only one winter.
Haitians need diversity too. Start bussing them from Ohio to the Northeastern states, like Delaware.
I was thinking maybe Martha’s Vineyard. That was such a big hit last time.
As I recall it, that particular recruit (Ofc. Noor) had barely made it through the academy, and had had one previous disciplinary issue, so clearly was not cut out to be an LEO. What I remember was that there were so many new residents who were Somali, that the locals wanted to recruit Somalis to the PD for better interactions with the new residents.
Tragic consequence of AA in this case was the death of the woman (Justine Damond) who’d called 911 after hearing a female scream and thought an assault was happening in the alley behind her home. But when she approached the responding patrol car, this AA hire shot her in the abdomen, whereupon she died. He was convicted of a manslaughter charge and served IIRC 4 years in prison.
I am all for careful screening of persons wanting to be LEOs. It just makes sense.
Another case of so much for being “held to a higher standard.”
The businesses and “non-profits” reap the profits and the citizens pay the price.
Me, too, but I am not in favor of Kamala Harris or Joe Biden doing the screening. The screening should be done for the right attributes.
The person who did the screening that gave Kimberly Cheatle the job of Director of the U.S.. Secret Service did not do a good job. I don’t think we have learned who did that screening, have we?
Never mind. Wikipedia says the person is appointed as the sole decision of the President. Now I’ll have to look up who was president when she was appointed.
In the meantime I note that the Wikipedia page for the office lists the current incumbent in the little summary box on the side. But where it would usually list the predecessor to the incumbent under the label “Preceded By,” it instead lists the “First Holder” of the office. Maybe there was a lot of demand from Wikipedia users who find the “First Holder” to be one of the first things they want to know.
That isn’t the only federal agency for which “First Holder” rather than “Preceded By” is given in that summary box, but there are other agencies for which it is still done in the way I remembered.
The summary box also tells us that the position of Deputy Director of the agency is currently vacant. Maybe the agency is too busy providing inadequate protection to former President Donald Trump to have time to fill that position just now. That’s just speculation, of course.
A guy like Eric Holder probably signed off.
That happened with the Minnesota town where my paternal grandmother ended up, too. She came from a German village on the Vistula River in Russian-ruled Poland, and ended up in Vergas, Minnesota. When I looked at the census of that village that was taken by the Russian empire in the mid 1890s, the surnames looked like a who’s who of Vergas, Minnesota. (A lot of those people first went to Middletown, Connecticut, though.) They didn’t all come at the same time. It happened over at least two decades. And there was a bit of back-and-forth, too. My great-grandfather came because that’s where an uncle of his had settled. He became a naturalized citizen (for which he had to renounce allegiance to the Czar of Russia) then went back to the village about the time his father died, intending to come back to the U.S. shortly, but instead got married and had two children, including my grandmother, and ten years later, after his wife died, brought his two kids to the U.S. to the rural town in Minnesota where many others from the village had settled. (I think I have the citizenship at the right place in the sequence, but it would bear checking.)