SPRINGFIELD I have to ask, even if it’s embarrassing. Do you feed dogs?
– We don’t eat. Dogs are better friends than people, says the 46-year-old Yves Pierre-Louis while crunching Kilo– named pit bull on the porch of a dilapidated detached house.
– Anyone can claim anything, Pierre-Louis states in his rough voice.
Pierre-Louis is an immigrant from Haiti and lives in the city of Springfield in the American Midwest. He works as a forklift driver in a solar panel factory.
He refers Donald Trump’s to the claim made in the September election debate, according to which the Haitian community in Springfield eats pets stolen from the native population.
The apparently absurd claim put an unknown small town in the middle of the US election campaign. The headlines spread around the world. Trump managed to wake up a global audience that was already numb to him.
– I won’t let it bother me. No, even though my co-worker was making fun of me today.
Haiti is a country shaken by natural disasters and violence, where Pierre-Louiskin lived under the threat of being killed and kidnapped. He says he is now focusing on getting the work done and the bills paid in his new home country.
– We have nothing against Trump or anyone else. We just want to work and be safe.
Donald Trump’s claim a few weeks ago pushed Springfield to the brink of mayhem.
The far-right started marching, and the city was rocked by more than thirty bomb threats.
In the video, Haitian radio host Miguelito Jerome talks about the fear that he too now feels in Springfield.
The city’s two universities sent students home for a week. Schools, shops and offices were evacuated, and a festival celebrating the city’s diversity was cancelled.
The mayor granted himself emergency powers, and the governor sent more police and sniffer dogs to patrol the city’s streets. Patrol cars were parked in the schoolyards to guarantee the children’s safety.
Bomb threats have proven to be groundless, but the fear is real.
Pastor Viles Dorsainvil locks the door behind us as we enter Springfield’s year-long Haitian Support Center.
Reverend Viles Dorsainvil has been seriously affected by the turmoil.
– Previously, the door was always open, but after the situation started, it remains closed, Dorsainvil, who runs the support center, explains.
The center offers support services to Haitian immigrants. There are language and driving lessons, legal services and help to tame the local bureaucracy.
Now there are few customers. Haitians have retreated to their homes after Trump’s attack.
– The accusations caused panic. People are afraid and anxious.
Dorsainvil himself admits that he is afraid. Even FBI agents from the federal police stopped by to talk with Dorsainvil about precautions.
When visits the support center, more Americans than Haitians knock on the door.
A white retired man goes to ask Dorsainvil to speak to his congregation. Last week he brought vegetables from his garden.
Next, a couple from California knocks on the door. Aurelio Rojas and Linda Rapatoni were nearby and decided to stop by to share what they think of Donald Trump’s speeches.
At the same time, they wrote a check for $200 as a donation to the center.
– It is evil to use already traumatized people as a bludgeon in a political game. What is really wrong with us? wonder Californians.
Caught up in the good life
The situation is also updated Amanda Paynewhen we meet in a new residential area built on the outskirts of Springfield.
Payne fled Haiti to the United States seven years ago.
She married a Haitian man who lived longer in Florida.
Three years ago, a Haitian friend lured me to Springfield.
– We wanted to change the scenery. We wanted a fresh start. There are too many people in Florida, Payne says.
Now the couple has two businesses and a standard of living higher than most recent arrivals from Haiti.
One company sells supplies that Haitians use for religious purposes. Another offers tax advice and legal services to Haitians.
In the video, Payne tells what it’s like when bomb threats come to school.
Springfield has long had problems under the surface. The city flourished for a long time. The disappearance began in the 1980s, when industrial and railway jobs fled abroad.
Recently, the city turned to a new rise. It needed more workers.
Haitians answered the call. There were already tens of thousands of them in the United States. With a special permit, even more people entered the country.
In the past year alone, nearly 400,000 Haitians have fled poverty and bloody gang violence.
– The new prosperity is at least partially thanks to the Haitians, Republican governor Mike DeWine wrote in The New York Times with the headline “The Truth About Springfield”.
Both the governor and the city’s mayor have taken it upon themselves to defend Springfield’s Haitians from Trump’s attacks.
Director of a personnel service company Cassie Brake says Haitian immigrants send him almost fifty job applications a week.
– They are great. They really want to work, and they’re always polite, Brake says in his office in downtown Springfield.
But they certainly came a lot and quickly.
Estimates vary between 15,000 and 20,000. That’s a lot in a town of about 60,000, and it created friction.
40-year-old small entrepreneur James Smith cleans up his home yard, which is like the wake of a tornado.
– The children got a little carried away, Smith apologizes.
Haitians live across the street.
– They are a decent and friendly group. And I haven’t seen them eat cats and dogs, says Smith, face with basic readings.
But in the same breath, he states that the Haitians have brought problems with them.
– My car insurance has doubled in price because there are so many more traffic accidents now than before.
Even the Haitians themselves admit that their driving skills have room for improvement.
Last year, a Haitian without a driver’s license crashed into a school bus so violently that an 11-year-old boy died. It caused a frenzy in the city.
Rents have also risen with the explosive growth in demand.
Even at the first aid station, Smith had to wait in line for three hours because the place was full of Haitians.
The authorities also acknowledge this problem.
– The drastic increase in the number of immigrants has created new challenges, the local clinic announces in a press release sent to .
James Smith does not blame the Haitians for the situation.
– Politicians are responsible. I don’t like Trump talking down about other people. But his politics were good. The southern border is the only thing we need to focus on, says Smith.
Denigrating immigrants has been an integral part of Donald Trump’s playbook for years.
42-year-old forklift driver Tom Brannon is on the same wavelength as the former president.
Although Springfield’s Haitians are largely in the country legally, Trump wants to get rid of them too. Brannon welcomes Trump’s promise.
– They have to go. We have enough of our own problems, says Brannon, who doesn’t quite know whether to believe the claim about eating cats and dogs.
– I have no proof, but it is part of their culture to sacrifice animals, Brannon believes.
Haitian Sam George has been in Springfield for just under a year.
Now there may be another move ahead.
– It scares me. They don’t want us here.
Georges is going to the factory for the night shift, but we agreed to meet again in the morning.
He promises to give a TV interview at his home.
In the morning, the mood has changed.
– My cousin thinks it’s too dangerous, Georges says on the phone, looking a little sad.
– I’m sorry, he says and hangs up.