Once a prosperous agricultural manufacturing city known for its greenhouses, Springfield, Ohio, saw its fortunes dry up long before Haitian migrants arrived.

I arrived in Springfield, Ohio, on a gloomy day in early October. It felt fitting. Over the city loomed a gray mist pierced by clock towers and spires attached to churches, some encircled by homes constructed long ago with great care and attention but rot crookedly into the earth today.

As I crossed a bridge and went up a hill, I drove through a neighborhood of houses like these. On the left side of the road there was an old foursquare with a cluttered yard and porch upon which stood a teenaged blond boy with a flag draped over his shoulders. He was watching the cars pass by. I wheeled into the parking lot of my hotel behind a shuttered bar that looked like an old-time saloon with the windows boarded up. It’s not all bad here. There’s Haitian food now, compliments of the 15,000 or so émigrés residing in Clark County, which encompasses Springfield. 

Indeed, that’s what brought me to this place. Well, not Rose Goute Creole, which opened its doors about a year ago on South Limestone Street to offer the townsfolk authentic island cuisine. No, I came to inquire about the grisly reports of recent arrivals from Haiti causing all manner of mischief. Well, that’s only partly true. I came because Springfield seems to be telling a difficult story about the American Dream and its decline. It is a story that raises more questions than it answers and satisfies no one looking for an easy solution. 

In September, Springfield became a flashpoint in the debate over immigration. Viral claims on social media about Haitians stealing people’s pets and eating them drew national and international attention. One resident, Erika Lee, said she knew someone whose cat apparently had been eaten. Another woman, Anna Kilgore, filed a police report in which she claimed that her cat might have been snatched up by Haitian neighbors. The former admitted that it was a baseless rumor and apologized after it “exploded” into a national story. The latter later found the missing cat, safe and sound, in the basement—but not before the police report had gone viral. Kilgore said she apologized to her neighbors.

Nevertheless, the pet-eating story became a national sensation on Sept. 10, when former president Donald Trump, in his debate with Kamala Harris, said illegal immigrants are “eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people who live there.”

By the time I arrived, more than 30 bomb threats had forced schools, hospitals, and government buildings to go into lockdown, evacuate, or close. Many people, including residents, pointed the finger at Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J. D. Vance, who had echoed the claims about pets being consumed. A Vance spokesperson, when pressed, even pointed to Kilgore’s police report as evidence. To make matters even stranger, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine claimed that some of the threats came from overseas, though he wouldn’t say from where. DeWine deployed a platoon of state troopers to be stationed throughout the Springfield City School District. 

I wasn’t surprised to find that locals were put on edge by the ordeal, regardless of whether they were for or against playing host to immigrants. The town also seems almost evenly divided on the issue. To understand why that is, I think you have to look at the history of The Rose City—so named because it once grew and shipped more roses than any other place in America. In 1919, its 33 greenhouses were producing more than 9.5 million roses a year. It was a booming, multi-million-dollar industry that benefited from one of the nation’s biggest railroads building the Big Four Train Depot in downtown Springfield.  

The city is unique in a way that was overlooked during the media furor. To be fair, you wouldn’t guess that now from the street level, either. You can, however, see hints of it in the faded grandeur of old edifices, like the Bushnell Building, where an attorney for the Wright Brothers first inked an application to obtain a patent for their “flying machine.” Springfield was also  home to the Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, which owned Collier’s Weekly, a magazine that pioneered muckraking journalism. Collier’s and International Harvester were two of the city’s biggest employers during the 20th century.

The American Dream lived and thrived in Springfield. It was a place of industry and ideas, carved out of a slice of wilderness that had been won from the Shawnee and settled by America’s founding stock. It was a testament to what a people with a sense of destiny could accomplish. 

But by the early 1950s, most of the commercial greenhouses had been closed for good. Crowell-Collier Publishing shut its doors and switched off the lights of its printing plant in 1957. Little by little, manufacturing jobs went away. Still, things weren’t so bad. It was a safe place that was home to a tight-knit community. In fact, Newsweek named it one of America’s “dream cities” in 1983. That award, however, was a bittersweet kiss, as the magazine found irrepressible evidence of decline everywhere it looked. “The times have not been hospitable to dreaming,” Newsweek concluded.  

Springfield would bleed half of its manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010. As the work slowed to a trickle, then ran out, a 2012 Gallup survey found Springfield to be the “unhappiest city” in the United States. By 2014, this place had witnessed more of its middle-class tumble down the economic ladder than any other metro area in the country since 2000. It tied only with Goldsboro, North Carolina, but won another distinction: it lost population every year since the 1960s, from a peak of more than 80,000 to fewer than 60,000 souls today, as its poverty rate soared to twice the national average. Springfield became the quintessential representative of “forgotten America.” 

Then something unexpected happened. Starting in 2020, newcomers, mainly Haitians, began arriving by the thousands. By 2024, Springfield’s population had increased by 25 percent, largely due to immigration. Their arrival put an immediate strain on the city, from hospital services to the availability of housing. Both fatal and non-fatal traffic collisions spiked, which correlated neatly with the arrival of the Haitians. Tensions began to rise. A culture clash was brewing between residents and recent arrivals. 

Then, an 11-year-old boy named Aiden Clark was killed on the first day of school when Haitian immigrant Hermanio Joseph slammed his car into the school bus on which Clark was a passenger. Joseph was convicted of first-degree felony involuntary manslaughter and fourth-degree felony vehicular homicide. Through an interpreter, he told the court that he empathized with Clark’s family, having children of his own, including one who had been born just days before the tragedy. 

“I have a family, and I left my country to help my family,” Joseph said, the Springfield News-Sun reported. “Instead of helping them, it’s become worse for them.” The judge who oversaw the case called it the most painful of his career.  

Joseph testified that he had been driving with a Mexican license and an Ohio ID card at the time of the crash. He was not authorized to drive in Ohio. Joseph also said that he has temporary protected status, a program that was created in 1990 to shield select groups of immigrants from removal and extended to Haitians by then-President Barack Obama in 2010 after an earthquake left Haiti in ruins. Trump has vowed to end the program and send the Haitians home if elected. Perhaps sensing the changing winds on immigration during an election year, Joe Biden, too, said that his administration won’t extend the program.  

“If you have not sought a lawful status or period of authorized stay, you will need to leave the United States before your authorized parole period expires, or you may be placed in removal proceedings after your period of parole expires,” the government said in a notice. Notably, the Biden administration made that move after Springfield was thrust into the national discourse.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t Clark’s death that turned the national spotlight on Springfield, but rather the lurid tales of ravenous, pet-eating immigrants—tales that have ultimately proved hard to verify and, for the critics of immigration, largely backfired. An Economist/YouGov poll found that most Americans disbelieved the claims of Haitian pet stealers. But how did they get here? Why Springfield? And how do the residents feel about it, really?  

“I don’t like it,” Toni told me. I met her at Game Cycle, a store that sells physical media, from vinyl records to Pokémon cartridges. Old Atari units sat collecting dust atop racks of DVDs, standing watch over vintage toys in faded packaging. She was in the arcade at the back of the store when I approached her. It’s a dimly lit grotto filled with light-gun games and pinball machines from the 1990s, themed after movies like Dirty Harry and The Shadow. Like Springfield itself, the store feels frozen in time. 

“There are a lot of homeless people who need help,” Toni continued. “Some are that way by choice, but not all.” She said it was “cool” that many of the Haitians were contributing to the economy but that the needy natives of Springfield ought to be the priority. 

Some version of this was what I typically heard from others, even from those who approve of, or don’t mind, the presence of a migrant community. 

“It’s a structural thing,” Ciera told me. She’s a bartender at O’Conner’s Irish Pub and grew up in Springfield. This is her home, and she said she doesn’t mind
sharing it with Haitians, but believes that the government was caught flatfooted by the influx. “The city wasn’t ready, but it’s been blown out of proportion,” she said, adding that most people she knows just want to get on with their lives. 

I asked a United States Postal Service worker for her thoughts as she deposited mail along a street. The letter carrier sternly told me that he were not allowed to comment on such matters. But as I walked back to my car, she approached me and, as if to tell me her thoughts without breaking the rules, pointed me in the direction of a black influencer named Anthony Harris, who had gone viral for saying that the Haitian situation is making him want to leave Springfield. I reached out to Harris but was unable to speak with him. 

Critics have put much of the blame on a coalition that consists of government, nonprofit organizations, and local businesses. It’s worth noting that it is hard to get anything about the Haitian migrants out of anyone official. Asking the police for a comment will get you referred to a press officer who won’t return your call. The same goes for other city employees and even schools. So I was surprised to have secured an interview with Amy Willman, the executive director of the Nehemiah Foundation, a nonprofit that partners with various churches and entities to serve the Haitian community.  

The offices of the foundation are located downtown at the former West High Street Central United Methodist Church, which has long since ceased to be used as a church. Levi Duncan, the owner of the Liberty Remodeling Company, recently acquired the building. Duncan is an Air Force veteran who crossed over to the Space Force later in his career. That brought him to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where Space Delta 18 is garrisoned, about 40 minutes from Springfield. I met Levi’s father, George, who said he is originally from Trinidad, in the main sanctuary of the former church.  

I asked George what he thought about the drama that brought me to town. “It’s bullshit,” he said, pushing the words through a thick Caribbean accent with a smile before pointing to the stairs that led to where the foundation is housed within the massive building. White paint covered his hands. He said they were working to breathe new life into the old church.  

In an office tucked into the back of the second floor I saw a man in a military uniform speaking to two Nehemiah staffers. I didn’t catch his nametag, but I assume now it was Levi Duncan. The three fell silent when I walked into the room and announced that I was a journalist asking questions, which is a neat trick. The man in uniform left as one of the workers fetched Willman. 

“People of faith should have a biblical response to what we call the ‘quartet of the vulnerable,’ which is the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner,” Willman told me. She said she had been actively avoiding interviews but, for some reason, felt compelled to speak with me.  

I asked her for an example of the kind of work Nehemiah does with the Haitian community. “We’re getting ready to launch a brand-new church-based English learning project,” she said. “We’re partnering with Warder Literacy Center. We have 21 churches and a hundred volunteers ready to go.”   

“I heard, I don’t know if this is verifiable, that in one of our schools, 50 percent of the population is now non-English speaking,” she said. 

Where does the money for these language initiatives come from? Willman said it’s a combination of state and local grants, recurring donations from supporters, and business sponsorships. That last one has been a sore spot with some locals who see the Haitians as job competition. Jamie McGregor, CEO of McGregor Metal, threw fuel on that fire when he seemed to suggest to The New York Times that he prefers hiring Haitians.  

“They come to work every day. They don’t cause drama. They’re on time,” McGregor said. “I wish I had 30 more,” he told PBS News Hour the next week. McGregor made these comments in response to the allegations that Haitians were gobbling up resources (as well as pets), but it still seemed intensely callous toward Springfield natives. 

When I asked why Springfield, of all places, had become a hub for Haitians, Willman said that the cause was murky. “I’ve heard that they’re a very communal culture, so you have families come and then when their families come, they’re like, ‘Come to Springfield, there’s jobs.’ And so, I think it was just a combination of things like that,” she said. “It’s possible that there were staffing agencies … employment agencies that were bringing in people or attracting them with jobs.”  

She paused. A look of concern washed over her face. “There’s the nefarious and exploitive version of that … like staffing agencies or housing people.” I was surprised to hear her say that, so I asked her to elaborate.  

“Employers, staffing agencies, landlords—they can exploit people who are in need,” Willman said. “But they can also provide a service to people in need.”  

One alleged example of exploitation is First Diversity Staffing, which is owned by George Ten.  

Residents have accused First Diversity Staffing of bussing immigrants into Springfield as a source of cheap labor. Ten also happens to own several beat-up rental properties that charge high rates to large numbers of Haitians. City spokesperson Karen Graves told the Springfield News-Sun that there is an “ongoing investigation” with “the appropriate law enforcement agencies looking into matters of human ‘job’ trafficking and other potential criminal activities involving staffing agencies in our community.”

When I pressed Willman on whether the foundation also looks after local concerns, like the homeless, she said that it is one of their four initiatives.  

“We run our county-wide emergency warming shelters for the homeless,” she said. “We do that with churches, with volunteers, but then collaborating with the [Emergency Management Agency], our city, law enforcement.”

At one point, she turned the question around. “When people start saying things like, ‘What about our veterans? What about our homeless?’ You know, because we have other issues, I want to say I haven’t seen any of you volunteering for an emergency warming shelter.” Willman added that she was horrified by some of the comments she had seen about the Haitian community, which, in her view, veered into open bigotry. 

Willman’s response reminded me of an essay by Richard Hanania called “Why is Everything Liberal?” In a nutshell, his thesis is that the side that “simply cares more” will “exert a disproportionate influence on all institutions and be more likely to see its preferences enacted in the time between elections when most people aren’t paying much attention.” Hanania concluded that people whose politics are liberal care more, which is why we often find ourselves living in environments that reflect their preferences. 

However, Willman would just argue that she is abiding by her faith and conscience. Indeed, men of the cloth whose pews had long been bare have been among the most outspoken defenders of the Haitians. Wes Babian, the pastor at First Baptist Church for almost two decades, told PBS News Hour that they had “lost people for years” without replenishing their ranks. That changed with immigration.  

There have been dissenting voices in the faith community. Rabbi Cary Kozberg, who leads Temple Sholom, chimed in during the national fracas to say that at the heart of Springfield is a “culture clash.” “We, as the citizens of Springfield, are being disenfranchised,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.  

I tried to reach the rabbi for a comment but did not receive a response. I think he is right about a culture clash, but the cause  is broader than immigration. There are visions here of America, of faith, and of the future that are competing in this decaying Rustbelt town, and they are part of a struggle that is playing out beyond Springfield. 

On the way out of town, I stopped by Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop, a throwback candy store that teleports you to the 1950s, when the Springfield dream still seemed a little more alive. The clerk behind the counter warned me that the city is not safe after dark anymore. She said she does not live here but that all the attention surrounding the pet-eating story has been good for business. It brought a lot of strangers to town.