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Fury about Haitian immigration in Springfield, Ohio points to Kamala Harris’s political challenge

Images of Trump acting as saviour to cats and ducks have flooded social media amid intense debate over immigration and racism in regional Ohio.

Adam CreightonAdam CreightonWashington Correspondent
@Adam_Creighton
2 min read
9:29AMSeptember 10, 2024.
Updated 3:24PMSeptember 10, 2024
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Images of Donald Trump protecting cats and ducks have gone viral on social media. Picture: X/Twitter.
Images of Donald Trump protecting cats and ducks have gone viral on social media. Picture: X/Twitter.

AI-generated images of Donald Trump posing as the saviour of cats and ducks have flooded social media amid reports that Haitian immigrants have been harming animals in Springfield, Ohio. The flood of images come one day before the former president is set to hammer Kamala Harris for her alleged role in permitting millions of unwanted immigrants into the country as vice president.

The viral images, which have variously vexed and amused, emerged amid claims by local residents from late August that Haitian immigrants had been causing chaos in the town, which has seen an influx of around 20,000 Haitians since 2020, when the town had a population of 58,000 according to the US census.

Ohio senator and Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance weighed into the debate on Monday (Tuesday AEST), blaming the disquiet on Kamala Harris, whom Joe Biden once tasked with curbing unwanted immigration into the US.

“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border tsar?” he said in a statement.

The images, which have been shared by Elon Musk and other influential figures, have sparked a furious online debate about racism and immigration that threatens to intrude into Tuesday’s night’s presidential debate on Philadelphia.

Videos of residents from a local council meeting from August 27 showed one woman, who claimed to have been a 45 year resident of the inland town, which is around 50 minutes drive west of Columbus, complaining about a lack safety in front of what appear to be local government officials.

“I have men who cannot speak English on my front yard, screaming at me, throwing mattresses in my front yard, throwing trash in my front yard … I understand you are protecting them, but who’s protecting the citizens? Who’s protecting me?” she said.

Another man says: “they’re in the park, grabbing up ducks by their neck, cutting their heads off and walking off with them and eating them”.

“I don’t know how you can all be comfortable with this, I honestly feel like somebody is getting paid,” he added.

Springfield police told local media on Monday they were aware of a recent social media post, which has since also gone viral, of a claim that a Springfield resident had found their pet cat dead and hanging from a branch at a Haitian household.

In May local media reported the death of an 11-year-old boy, Aiden Clark, and the hospitalisation of over 20 children after a school bus carrying 52 children overturned owing to reckless driving by Hermanio Joseph, a 36 year old Haitian immigrant.

A second lady, at what appeared to be the same meeting, spoke of her “terrible sadness” at the destruction of her native Springfield.

“I’m angry my friends and family are packing up and moving away, I’m angry that foreigners are using up the resources set up for Americans that reside here,” she said.

Vice President Harris, whom Republicans have sought to blame for the millions of undocumented immigrants that have entered the US across the border with Mexico during her administration, in 2021 boasted of extending temporary protected status visas to over 100,000 Haitians, whose nation has been wrought by extreme political turmoil for years.

Democratic Party congresswoman from California Maxine Waters, a prominent African-American, said Haitians were “treated differently because they’re black, because they are Haitians”.

“They’re black, they’re poor. It’s the poorest country in the hemisphere. They have been exploited and it continues all the time,” she told MSNBC on Monday.

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Adam Creighton
Adam CreightonWashington Correspondent

Adam Creighton is an award-winning journalist with a special interest in tax and financial policy. He was a Journalist in Residence at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business in 2019. He’s written for The Economist and The Wall Street Journal from London and Washington DC, and authored book chapters on superannuation for Oxford University Press. He started his career at the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. He holds a Bachelor of Economics with First Class Honours from the University of New South Wales, and Master of Philosophy in Economics from Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/us-politics/fury-about-haitian-immigration-in-springfield-ohio-points-to-kamala-harriss-political-challenge/news-story/f277daf2b61b14b63dac435229bef0c0