Trump Said Immigrants Ruined This City. Here’s the Real Story.

“Springfield is a tinderbox right now. And all these people [are] throwing matches, man.”

By Paul Blest, More Perfect Union

Last year, the city of Springfield, Ohio, was thrust into the national spotlight when both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance falsely accused Haitian immigrants of kidnapping and eating their neighbors’ pets during the campaign.

“I knew that there was gonna be chaos,” Carl Ruby, a local pastor and longtime immigration advocate, told More Perfect Union. “I had no idea how bad it was gonna be.”

Thousands of Haitian migrants had moved to Springfield in recent years, bringing new life to a once-thriving small American city that had been in decline for decades. With the influx of new residents came challenges, such as overcrowded health clinics, schools serving their new Haitian students, and skyrocketing housing costs.

But when the city and residents asked for help from the federal government, what they got instead was a false rumor blown up into a national scandal, when Trump claimed during a presidential debate that Haitians were “eating the dogs, they’re eating the pets.”. A white supremacist group marched multiple times throughout the city, and schools were subjected to bomb threats.

“Springfield is a tinderbox right now,” Barron Seelig, an advocate for Springfield’s homeless, told More Perfect Union. “And all these people [are] throwing matches, man.”’

Trump eventually won Springfield by fewer than 150 votes, and Clark County by the largest margin since Herbert Hoover nearly 100 years ago. He promised to make Springfield one of his first targets for mass deportations.

After the attention faded from Springfield, More Perfect Union went back to talk to people about what had happened in Springfield — not just over the summer, or since the Haitians had arrived, but over the past several decades since Newsweek profiled Springfield as an “all-American city.”

What we found was representative of what happened to much of the country: deindustrialization decimated a town built by organized labor at companies like International Harvester. And what replaced it were companies lured by tax subsidies and the promise of cheaper, nonunion labor, after decades of disinvestment and austerity.

“The only reason we are stuck in this us-versus-them scarcity battle is because the state of Ohio has made decisions to prioritize tax cuts for the wealthiest 10 percent of Ohio earners and some of the richest corporations on the planet,” Hannah Halbert, the executive director of the group Policy Matters Ohio, told us.

We spoke with Haitian immigrants, Trump supporters from Springfield, experts, advocates for immigrants, workers, and the homeless, and more about why Springfield began its decline in the first place, what brought Haitians to Springfield, where the rampant misinformation about Haitians comes from, and what’s next for Springfield if the Trump administration carries out deportations of up to a quarter of the city’s population.

We looked at who, if anyone, is to blame for all of this — and what’s needed to make Springfield a better place for all of its residents.

“We need to take into consideration everybody’s needs, everybody’s wants, and everybody’s desires,” Seelig told us. “You can’t look at a Haitian guy and go, ‘You came from a third-world country, you should be grateful that we’re allowing you to eat at our Applebee’s.”

“I’m hoping that in 2025, both of them will take time to learn from others - the Haitians, also the residents of Springfield,” said Mia Perez, a local immigration attorney. “Because we are living here, the Haitians are not going anywhere, and we’re just gonna have to find ways to get along.”

“And make Springfield great again, or something like that,” she added.

Watch our report from Springfield below: