How an Ohio Town Landed in the Middle of the Immigration Debate

It has been more than a year since the fateful morning last August when, outside Springfield in southwestern Ohio, a minivan veered into oncoming traffic and rammed into a school bus on the first day of class, killing an 11-year-old boy and injuring 23 other children.

Soon, it emerged that the driver of the minivan was not a longtime resident but one of the thousands of immigrants from Haiti who had recently settled in the area. He was driving with a foreign license not valid in Ohio.

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Haitians were new to the region. During the last census, in 2020, a little more than 58,000 people lived in Springfield, a town at the crossroads of America that had fallen on hard times and shed population as opportunity slipped away. But it has changed dramatically in recent years, as a boom in manufacturing and warehouse jobs attracted a swelling wave of immigrants, mainly from Haiti. City officials estimate that as many as 20,000 Haitians have arrived, most of them since the pandemic.

At the first City Commission meeting after the bus crash, angry residents packed the chambers and demanded answers.

“How do you know we aren’t getting criminals, rapists?” a man in a blue Harley Davidson T-shirt asked. “Who can stop them from coming here?” someone else wanted to know. Had they been screened? Were they going to use their driver’s licenses to vote?

The city manager, Bryan Heck, explained that the Haitians were lawfully in the country. The police chief, Allison Elliott, said that Haitians were not responsible for the city’s yearslong struggle with crime such as retail theft. Commissioners said that they had come for job opportunities.

But nothing could quell the outrage.

The arrival of successive streams of immigrants has created friction throughout America’s history. In recent years, especially, people from all over the world have settled in places, like Springfield, unaccustomed to high levels of immigration.

The issue has become even more politicized this year, as the presidential election campaign focuses on the record number of crossings on the southern border in 2023. So it came as no surprise that the influx of Haitians to Springfield would become a talking point for Mr. Vance.

In a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in July, he described Springfield as a town that was nearly a carbon copy of Middletown, where he grew up, except that it had now been “overwhelmed” by Haitians who were pushing up housing costs and collecting benefits.

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But the speed and volume of arrivals have put pressure on housing, schools and hospitals. The community health clinic saw a 13-fold increase in Haitian patients between 2021 and 2023, from 115 to 1,500, overwhelming its staff and budget.

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Haitians who heard that the Springfield area boasted well-paying, blue-collar jobs and a low cost of living poured in, and employers were eager to hire and train the new work force.

The Haitians had Social Security numbers and work permits, thanks to a federal program that offered them temporary protection in the United States. Some had been living for years in places like Florida, where there is a thriving Haitian community.

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On Aug. 14, the first day of school, the Springfield City School District’s registration department was crammed with immigrant families waiting to enroll children, so many that some had to queue up in the hallway.

Nearly 350 new students registered for elementary and middle school the first week of classes, most of them children of immigrants.

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The accident that inflamed tensions happened last Aug. 22 {snip}

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The tragedy shook Springfield residents, and it emboldened many who crowded the first City Commission meeting after the accident to air long-held suspicions and grievances about the newcomers in their midst.

In the year since the crash, hostility toward the Haitians has only intensified, with speakers at more recent commission meetings talking about an “invasion,” a description that has become a staple of right-wing immigration rhetoric.

At a meeting on July 30, residents stepped up to two podiums in a session that quickly devolved into chaos.

“Haitians are occupying our land,” declared one middle-aged woman, Glenda Bailey, warning that the immigrants would soon become the majority and run everyone else out of town. She said they had low IQs.

Speakers claimed, without evidence, that Haitians were responsible for drug trafficking, retail theft and disease.

“Not one person asked anyone in this community how we felt about them coming in here and invading our city,” said one resident, Mike Powell.

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