Why Haitian Immigrants Move to Springfield, Ohio

(NewsNation) — Haitian immigrants have been moving to Springfield, Ohio, in recent years, seeing an opportunity to rebuild the region after escaping mass violence and poverty in their home country of Haiti.

This week, the community was inadvertently thrust into the national spotlight after former President Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance repeated unsubstantiated claims that some immigrants in the Ohio town were eating their neighbors’ pets.

The claim has been denied by local authorities, who said in a statement that there have been “no credible reports or specific allegations that pets have been abused, injured or mistreated by individuals within the immigrant community.”

According to the Dayton Daily News, the Haitian population in the area is estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 people. The city has given a boost to the dying city, which had lost both industry and population over the past decade.

What is a ‘temporary protected status’ for migrants?

Haiti is one of 15 countries eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a federal immigration status that allows immigrants to legally live and work in the country for up to 18 months.

It allows individuals to come to the U.S. legally and apply for work authorization immediately. Many who fall under TPS also apply for asylum, which takes significantly longer due to nationwide backlogs.

President Joe Biden’s administration this year announced an 18-month extension and reclassification of TPS for Haitians living in the country, citing ongoing instability in the country.

Why do Haitians go to Ohio?

Criminal gangs have been plundering the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas, killing, raping and kidnapping thousands of people in recent years. Hundreds of thousands more have been left homeless and unemployed, exacerbating poverty.

The first Haitians came to Springfield around 2018, choosing the jobs and affordable housing, Lucken Merzius, a Haitian immigrant who lives in the area, told PBS News.

“I got a decent job while I was in Haiti, and then I had to make a difficult decision to leave. It wasn’t easy,” he told the outlet.

When the first delegation arrived, they asked their relatives and friends back home to join them. From then on, the community grew steadily, he said.

“The initial motivation was the job and the employment,” Rose Joseph, an Amazon warehouse worker who also does seasonal tax preparation work, told Reuters.

Joseph came to Springfield in 2022 after arriving in Florida two years earlier to escape violence in Haiti. Like many others, he traveled north based on good job prospects, the outlet reported.

The arrival of immigrants brought an economic boom to the city, which was once a manufacturing center, but in recent decades began to decline as factories closed.

The city shrank from a population of 80,000 to 60,000 in 2014. That number has since grown due to an increase in Haitian immigrants, The New York Times reported.

Arrival of Haitians causes mixed reactions among locals

While the immigrants have been welcomed with open arms by many permanent residents, their arrival has also caused concern and even hostility among others, who claim the newcomers are taking jobs in factories, driving up housing prices, worsening traffic and straining municipal services.

“It’s causing sharp increases in rents and housing prices, forcing people out of their homes,” Bill Monaghan, a former journalist in Springfield, told NewsNation.

“It creates delays in the response of public safety, like police, fire, or even emergency services. You go to a location and no one speaks English,” Monaghan also said.

The number of affordable housing vouchers fell as landlords switched to market-rate rents that rose due to increased demand, a setback for current residents who relied on vouchers, Reuters reported.

These feelings were further reinforced last year when a minivan collided with a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy. The driver was a Haitian man who had recently settled in the area and was driving without a valid license.

At a city commission meeting Tuesday, the boy’s parents condemned the fact that politicians used their son’s death to advance political goals.

For others, the immigrants felt like a lifeline.

“We want more jobs in our community, and in order to fill those jobs, some of the jobs have to be filled by people who aren’t originally from here,” Jaime McGregor, owner of the McGregor Metals manufacturing plant in Springfield, told PBS.

McGregor told the newspaper that about 10% of his workforce, about 30 employees, is Haitian.

“I wish I had 30 more,” he said. “Our Haitian colleagues come to work every day. They don’t have a drug problem. They stick to their machine. They get their grades. They’re here to work. And overall, it’s a big difference from what we’re used to in our community.”

Rich McHugh of NewsNation and the Associated Press contributed to this story.