Camera Bartolotta knew he had to say something.
A Republican senator from Pennsylvania has learned that former President Donald Trump is targeting a small town in her district as part of his recent renewed focus on the issue of Haitian immigration to the United States.
At a rally earlier this month, Trump said Charleroi, population 4,000, has been hit with a “huge wave of Haitian immigration under Vice President Kamala Harris” that is “costing local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.” He claimed the town is now “virtually bankrupt” because the immigrants are “bringing massive crime to the town and everywhere around it.”
Soon after, right-wing figures began parachuting in to document evidence of migrant misconduct and expose the divisions in the town. Rumors of migrant workers being “bused in” quickly spread online.
So Bartolotta took to social media. On Facebook, she said recent immigrants to her community were there “to work legally, pay taxes, raise children, and be part of our community.” On X, she pushed back against a video that purported to show buses of immigrants, imploring the right-wing LibsOfTikTok account to “check the facts before posting information that puts the safety of good, hard-working people at risk.”
In an interview with NBC News, Bartolotta said he couldn’t let those comments go unmentioned.
“I know the circumstances in my neighborhood, I know the plight that many have fled, I know what the children are going through,” she said. “When I saw how this issue was being distorted and how these people were being slandered and threatened and completely misunderstood, I felt I needed to (speak out) because I represent everyone in my constituency, including those who are there on work visas and are doing the best they can to raise their families.”
“I just wanted to clear up any misunderstandings,” she continued. “I think I just added gasoline to the fire. Who knows? I just wanted to set the record straight.”
Bartolotta is not the only Republican fighting these rumors. About 230 miles west of Charleroi along Interstate 70, Springfield, Ohio, Mayor Rob Lew and Clark County Commission Chairwoman Melanie Flax Wilt have strongly denied rumors spread by Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, that Haitian immigrants are eating residents’ pets.
While local Republicans have not directly blamed Trump or Vance, they have sought to counter party leaders’ claims that Springfield is being overrun and destroyed by newcomers, and have called for those claims to be toned down as the city deals with a series of hoax bomb threats at local schools.
The case has become a hot-button issue in an election where immigration has become a central issue: Trump has blasted the recent wave of immigration to those towns in presidential debates, rallies and online, while Vance has focused on Springfield.
The backlash from local officials is reminiscent of the situation after the 2020 election, when Republican election officials in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania had to contend with Trump’s attempts to rig the election.
Meanwhile, Republican local officials now find themselves in the same position as their big-city Democratic counterparts, who for years have fought back when Trump has tried to take their local issues to the national level.
Another aspect of the fight harkens back to when Trump first ran for office in 2016. A touchstone of the former president’s campaign was revitalizing small American towns like Springfield and Charleroi that had been left behind and seen population and job losses for decades.
New waves of immigration to these towns are helping to reverse some of those trends, a fact that local Republican officials make sure to point out when defending the newcomers.
“We’ve created 8,500 jobs in the last 10 years,” Lu told NBC News in an interview, “and we’re expecting to build about 2,000 homes in the next five years. That’s something a city like ours can be proud of and something to talk about.”
“Maybe I should change political parties.”
The political backgrounds of Charleroi and Springfield couldn’t be more similar. Trump won Washington County, Pennsylvania, where Charleroi is located, by 22 points in 2020. He won Clark County, Ohio, by 23 points that same year. Charleroi is about an hour from Pittsburgh. Springfield is about an hour from Columbus and about 40 minutes from Dayton.
It is estimated that between a few hundred and 2,000 Haitian immigrants have settled in Charleroi in recent years (migrants from other countries have also settled in the area over the past decade).
Springfield’s population is nearly 60,000, considerably larger than Charleroi’s, but it has about 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants, many of whom were able to come to the U.S. through federal humanitarian immigration programs. Some have tourist visas or green cards, but Governor Vance said at a recent rally that he still considers them “illegal” because he doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of the programs that brought them to the U.S.
Local officials in both Charleroi and Springfield have highlighted the problems created by the new immigrant wave — concerns about dangerous driving, the need to hire translators at local schools, challenges posed by language barriers, and strains on local resources — but they and local business leaders have made clear that, contrary to claims by Republican presidential candidates, the new immigrants have a positive impact on the local economy, expanding the tax base and not leading to an increase in crime.
“You may never see me again, and that’s OK,” Trump said at a rally announcing his Springfield campaign last week. “‘What happened to Trump?’ ‘Yeah, he never left Springfield.'”
Lew and Flax Wilt have not stated whether they will support Trump in the fall election. In an interview with NBC News, Lew emphasized that although he is registered as a Republican, he was elected to an independent position and “is not necessarily involved in a lot of partisan political discussions.” While he has received support from voters for his response to this incident, Lew said he has also heard concerns “because I’m a Republican.”
Laura Rosenberger, executive chairwoman of the Clark County Republican Party, said that although Mr. Lu votes Republican, he is not involved in supporting the local party. She expressed serious concerns that both Mr. Lu and Flax Wilt would not publicly endorse the party’s standard-bearer. She added that when Mr. Trump visits Clark County, he should visit places other than Springfield.
“If you’re a Republican and you’re publicly admitting to the media that you can’t decide whether or not to vote for President Donald Trump, maybe you should switch parties,” she said. “That sends a divisive message and it’s not good for the Republican brand. They need to come to terms with being a Trump supporter in this regard.”
The Republican backlash went up several levels on Friday, when Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican and Springfield native, sought to refute Trump and Vance’s claims about the town in a New York Times op-ed. “As a supporter of the candidates,” he said, “I am saddened that Trump and others continue to disparage legal immigrants who live in Springfield and repeat claims that lack evidence.”
“These comments hurt the city and the people who live there and have spent their lives there,” he wrote. (Vance said at Saturday’s event, “DeWine has endorsed candidate Trump Vance. We are a large political party and some of us will have differences and that’s OK.”)
“It’s really hard to discern the truth unless you’re here.”
Now back in Charleroi, Ms. Bartolotta has been open about her support for the former president and said she doesn’t blame him for the national scrutiny the town faces. After the July assassination attempt on Trump at a rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, Ms. Bartolotta changed X’s profile picture to one of Trump’s iconic fist raised.
She is scheduled to meet with Trump on Monday during a visit to western Pennsylvania, and said she “would love to come to Charleroi and show you these amazing people, because everywhere is a different story.”
“Tensions are high everywhere and people are feeling like a lot of different things are being aimed at them from a lot of different angles,” she said. “Unless you’re here, it’s really hard to gauge what’s true, so I just hope people will take a moment to pause and tone down the harshness.”
Bartolotta stressed that Charleroi’s migrants did not enter the country illegally across the Mexican border, adding that many came to the town as a result of efforts by a major factory owner who had struggled for years to find workers for a factory that wanted to stay open locally. Now the town is uniting to stop another factory that has announced it will close from leaving town.
“Let me be very clear: no one in Washington County has anything negative to say about Haitians,” said Washington County Republican Chairman Sean Logue. “We have absolutely no negative opinion of Haitians. They actually have a good reputation for being church-going and hard-working.”
But Logue said the influx of migrants is outstripping the town’s ability to cope, and he blamed state and federal Democratic leaders for not providing additional funding or boosting the budget. Logue said he expects Trump to visit the town soon. Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to Trump, declined to comment on whether such a visit is planned.
Asked about Bartolotta’s work, Logue said locals “consider her to be an excellent representative for the electorate.”
Charleroi borough mayor Joe Manning, who identifies as an independent, agrees with Logue about Bartolotta, but doesn’t agree with the premise that the town needs immediate federal intervention.
“Funding for what?” Manning said. “There’s no line item in the budget for Haitian clothing or Haitian housing. These are people who live and work here. I’m not doing anything special for other people. They go to work, they pay their bills, they’re here legally.”
Bartolotta wanted to emphasize that a local store owner who sells Trump merchandise told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that some local immigrants have stopped by her store to tell her they support the former president’s campaign. Asked if Charleroi offers a road map for revitalizing other small towns, she said, “Absolutely.”
“We’re losing population at a tremendous rate in southwestern Pennsylvania,” she said, “so if we want to bring people back to work and keep our factories and manufacturing going, we need to have people available to work in our factories and our stores and so on. That’s how we can keep those businesses going.”
As for Trump’s focus, Bartolotta said he thinks the party needs to focus on controlling inflation and creating jobs, especially with Pennsylvania looking like a state that could decide the entire election.
“Don’t get distracted by the kettle that’s just whistling,” she said. “Take it off the heat. Focus on the important issues that affect everyone.”
In Springfield, Lu said he never expected the attention he would receive from his party’s top presidential candidate when he won the mayoral election in November.
“If this was on the list, I’m not sure I would have run,” he said. “I don’t know who in their right mind would have run.”
