President Donald Trump repeated his racist claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, on Friday, doubling down on his anti-immigrant rhetoric as town residents detailed horror stories of facing bomb threats and being harassed.
“In Springfield, Ohio, 20,000 illegal Haitian immigrants came into a town of 58,000 people and destroyed people’s lives. They destroyed the town,” Trump said at a lengthy news conference at a Los Angeles golf course. “People don’t want to talk about it. Even the townspeople don’t want to talk about it because it sounds too bad for the town. They lived there … and it was a great place for many years. It was a safe place, a good place. Now it’s 20,000, I heard today it’s 32,000.”
He then added, “We’re going to have a massive deportation out of Springfield, Ohio. Mass deportation. We’re going to get these people out of the country. We’re going to take them back to Venezuela,” incorrectly describing the country from which most of the migrants are coming.
Haiti is one of 16 countries to which the U.S. government has granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) due to ongoing conflict, making it easier for immigrants to gain permission to work in the U.S. As president, Trump sought to end TPS for Haiti and called the country a “shithole.”
Trump’s comments came after he first repeated the false claim during Tuesday’s presidential debate that immigrants in Springfield were stealing and eating people’s dogs and cats — a claim that has repeatedly been proven false.
The city of Springfield received several bomb threats this week, forcing it to close City Hall and evacuate schools, and Haitian residents there have reported severe intimidation and harassment, according to the Haitian Times.
J.D. Vance, who represents Springfield residents as an Ohio senator, continued to attack the town on Friday, deploying racist tropes that blame immigrants for bringing disease and crime to the area.
Just before President Trump spoke in California, Joe Biden was in Springfield condemning President Trump’s attacks on Haitians.
“This is a community that is under attack in our country right now. This is just wrong. It has no place in America. What he’s doing has to stop. It has to stop,” Biden said at the White House.