City officials in Springfield, Ohio, are giving Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) the cold shoulder. The city declined to take a phone call with Donald Trump’s running mate, miffed that they think Trump and Vance are giving their city a bad name by repeating claims that Haitian immigrants are wreaking havoc.
News consumers will have a hard time getting close to the truth of this story, as nearly all major media have also taken a partisan stance, claiming that the allegations of Haitian immigrant bad behavior are “baseless,” “without evidence,” or “debunked.” This is not true. There is plenty of evidence for the claims; there is just no proof positive.
What are the claims? That some of the 20,000 Haitians that were imported and dumped into Springfield, which had been a town of just 60,000, were abducting and eating neighborhood cats and dogs as well as ducks and geese that live in local parks. There is, in fact, evidence for these claims, and it is the same kind of evidence that would be introduced in a court trial: police reports and eyewitness testimony.
For one example, a local man addressed the Springfield City Commission in August to say he’s seen the immigrants “snatch up” geese by their necks to take them home for slaughter from local parks. In another example, a local man called police on August 26 to report that four Haitian immigrants had taken geese from the local park; the audio of the call may be heard here. These are only two examples of multiple reports from local residents about disappearing pets, unlicensed and dangerous Haitian drivers, and more.
Remarkably, almost every media outlet local or national seems to have decided to simply assert, untruthfully, that there is “no evidence” of these claims. This attitude seems to be connected to media disdain for Donald Trump, and it seems media have decided that anything Trump says simply cannot be allowed to be true.
It is likely that a similar attitude, along with feeling stung by bad publicity, is what motivated the City of Springfield to say “no” to a phone call with Senator Vance. But it is hard to know based on the reporting. This story from ABC News, for example, states that city officials declined to talk to Vance because he wanted to bring in “third parties” who would testify to their experiences with Haitian immigrants. The city appears to have decided to stick its fingers in its ears and refuse to hear anything that it has decided is not acceptable. The ABC story simply repeats the point of view of Springfield officials and Democrats more broadly.
