Residents in Springfield, Ohio, are attempting to come together after their community has been plagued by bomb threats and tension in the aftermath of unfounded claims that Haitian migrants were abducting and eating their neighbors’ pets.
Springfield is a small town of about 60,000 residents in the western part of the state. Once a manufacturing hub that was home to nearly 80,000 people, its economy began to shrink in the 1980s after factories closed and jobs moved overseas.
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The town remained that way until 2015 when the Chamber of Commerce tried kickstarting its economy. The addition of new jobs and cheap cost of living attracted a handful of Haitians, who moved to the U.S. to escape the turmoil in their own country.
Through word of mouth with friends and family, that trickle quickly turned into a surge during the pandemic. Today, anywhere between 12,000 and 20,000 of Springfield’s population is Haitian, many of whom are legal U.S. citizens.