SPRINGFIELD: Schools were evacuated for a second day in a row in the small Ohio town of Springfield on Friday, local media reported, amid tensions against Haitian immigrants fueled by Donald Trump and his Republican Party.
Springfield authorities have closed one high school and evacuated two elementary schools, the local mayor said. Springfield-Sun News This was reported by newspapers and other media.
The disruptions, which came after similar evacuations on Thursday in reaction to a bomb threat, followed an unspecified warning from the Springfield Police Department, according to reports.
The director of the local Haitian community center, Viles Dorsainvil, said: AFP that the FBI was also investigating threatening phone calls to the organization.
The Ohio town has suddenly been thrust into the national spotlight after a conspiracy theory spread on social media claiming the large Haitian immigrant community has been stealing and eating the pets of the predominantly white population.
The strange story began last week with a post on social media site X claiming that “ducks and pets are disappearing.”
It was then quickly amplified by Republican politicians, billionaire X owner Elon Musk and Trump himself, including during his nationally televised debate on Tuesday with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is seizing on the false story to fuel his campaign message that the United States is facing an “invasion” of illegal immigrants, whom he characterizes as violent criminals and escapees from “insane asylums.”
On Thursday, Trump said Springfield residents were facing “20,000 illegals” who were “destroying their entire way of life.”
“No one knows where they came from. I am furious for young American girls who are being raped, sodomized and murdered by savage foreign criminals,” Trump added.
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Trump's vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, posted on X on Friday that Springfield has seen “a massive increase in contagious diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime. This is what happens when you put 20,000 people in a small community.”
Springfield's Haitian community is part of a flow taking advantage of President Joe Biden's route for migrants fleeing countries in crisis, such as the Caribbean nation of Haiti.
The Ohio city had experienced years of population decline and economic decline as manufacturing industries moved out.
The arrival of some 20,000 Haitians has been credited with reviving the local economy, but it has also put severe strains on public services in a city that, according to the 2020 census, previously had a population of 58,000.
Tensions first flared last year when a newly arrived Haitian driver crashed his minivan into a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy, Aiden Clark.
Anti-immigrant activists have seized on the incident, but this week the boy's father launched an impassioned appeal to politicians to back off.
“They can spew all the hate they want,” Nathan Clark said. “However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed, to mention Aiden.”
