Rose Joseph
and Banal Oreus followed different paths from Haiti to this struggling
Midwestern industrial city that suddenly finds itself at the center of
the U.S.
presidential race.
Joseph
arrived in 2022 after landing in Florida two years earlier to escape violence
in Haiti, journeying north on word of good job prospects. Oreus, after stops in
Brazil, Portugal and Mexico over an eight-year stretch, was drawn to
Springfield in 2023 by family and friends who had already found their way here.
"The
first motivation was job and work opportunities," Joseph, now an Amazon
warehouse worker who also does seasonal tax preparation work, said in an
interview weeks before Tuesday night's presidential debate.
The arrival
of Joseph, Oreus and as many as 15,000 other immigrants from Haiti over roughly
the last three years has reshaped this city of 58,000, offering some promise of
economic revival along with growing pains. It also has unwittingly thrust
Springfield into the middle of a national conversation about immigration, the
economy and race - with Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate
JD Vance recirculating what local police and city officials say are false claims
of crimes and atrocious acts being committed by Haitians.
After a
half-century of decline, data show the rapid population rebound has had a
notable impact in Springfield.
Enrollment
in Medicaid and federal food assistance and welfare programs surged. So did
rents and vehicle accidents, including a collision last year when a Haitian
without a U.S. driver's license drove into a school bus, killing 11-year-old
Aiden Clark and injuring 26 other children.
The number
of affordable housing vouchers fell as landlords moved to market-based rents
that were rising in the face of higher demand, a blow to existing residents
relying on them.
What didn't
happen, according to interviews with a dozen local, county and officials as
well as city police data, was any general rise in violent or property crime.
Wages didn't collapse, but surged with a rising number of job openings in a
labor market that remained tight until recently.
In early
July, days before he was tapped to be Trump's running mate, Vance read aloud a
letter from Springfield officials as he quizzed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome
Powell at a congressional hearing on whether immigration added to inflation by increasing
housing costs, and whether a rising supply of new workers hurt others by
holding down wages.
What was
happening in Springfield was "a very real example of this particular
concern, straight from the horse's mouth," Vance said.
Powell
responded that those effects might be apparent in some places, but overall the
rising labor supply in recent years had helped grow the economy and slow
inflation. And in the long run, he said, the impact was "kind of
neutral" because markets adapt.
More
recently, Vance and other Republicans have amplified false claims aired by some
residents at weekly city commission meetings. City commissioners in their
public comments have pushed back, noting that the vast majority of Haitians are
in the country legally and have a right to live where they choose.
Springfield
police also responded forcefully: "There have been no credible reports or
specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within
the immigrant community," they said in a statement. "Additionally,
there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal
activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents' homes."
Still, Trump aired
those falsehoods including the baseless claim that immigrants
are eating pets in his debate Tuesday night with his Democratic opponent, Vice
President Kamala Harris.
The Biden
White House earlier on Tuesday condemned the
viral misinformation, saying such remarks sought to divide Americans through
lies and was based on racism.
'A ROCKY
SEASON'
Data from
Springfield's experience of the last few years paints a nuanced picture of the
impact of rapid population growth.
Local rents
did increase at the third-fastest pace among cities from May 2022 through the
end of 2023, rising at a 14.6% annualized pace, data from Zillow shows. But the
market also appears to be normalizing: Rents this year have risen at a modest
3.2% pace, 68th fastest among 400 cities sampled.
Local wages
were slow to take off during the post-pandemic job market reshuffling, data
from Chmura Economics & Analytics' JobsEQ shows. But through the years
associated with rising Haitian immigration, wages grew at a more than 6% annual
pace for more than two years, about twice as long as seen nationally.
As Powell
suggested, the process may have run its course. With the national labor market
also cooling, wage growth in Springfield is down to 1.1%, job openings remain
strong but the pace of hiring has slowed, and the unemployment rate has started
to rise - faster here than nationally.
Just how
many Haitians have arrived here remains unclear. Estimated at as many as 20,000
in the letter Vance read to Powell, city officials have since cut that to
between 12,000 and 15,000 based on driver's license and state identification
data.
It is still
a jarring increase from around 3,500 in just a few years - too fast to be
reflected yet in Census data and the equivalent of 1.6 million or so new
arrivals to New York City.
There are
growing pains - indeed outright tension - as a result, with sometimes ugly
rhetoric at city commission open comment periods. A small group of white
supremacists marched through town during a jazz festival in mid-August.
For many
local civic and business leaders, however, the advantages of having more people
to fill jobs, start businesses, and buy goods and services are not lost.
Bordered by
farms in the Miami Valley and with deep roots in farm equipment and other
manufacturing, Springfield was stung like many heartland towns by late-20th
century industrial decline.
A growing
population "could absolutely have a long-term benefit," Springfield
mayor Rob Rue said in an interview. "But we are in a rocky season...The
most difficult thing for myself as mayor, the five city commissioners, and the
city manager is to navigate ourselves through this."
That
includes cooling some local tempers while trying to find funds for extra
police, fire and health workers, and French and Creole translators.
'WE NEEDED A
WORKFORCE'
A Biden
immigration parole program allowed about 205,000 Haitians into the country as
of August. Hundreds of thousands others are here under Temporary Protected
Status granted to those from the poor and often violence-wracked island.
Recent and
longstanding immigrants said family and social networks, word-of-mouth, and the
quest for higher wages and lower living costs helped draw people to
Springfield.
"My
friend and I heard about Ohio and Indiana, that there were a lot of work
opportunities, and we made a plan and came," said Joseph, who also helps
staff a local Haitian cultural center and has resumed studies toward a social
work degree at Clark State Community College.
Joseph, who
arrived on a tourist visa, has applied for asylum and remains here legally
under TPS - a status that Trump sought
to revoke during his presidency before being blocked by the
courts. She rented a two-bedroom apartment on the open market that she shares
with a friend.
Oreus works
full time at a local manufacturer and also at the St. Vincent De Paul Society,
helping more recent arrivals prepare immigration, benefits, and work documents.
Why
Springfield?
"I had
friends here ... My brother lived here, and I moved here to join him,"
Oreus said amid the bustle of an afternoon legal clinic for new immigrants.
Springfield's
housing problems predate the Haitians' arrival. A pair of studies by the
Greater Ohio Policy Center found underinvestment and lack of code enforcement
over the years, alongside population decline, left homes vacant and in
disrepair.
There are
some signs that is reversing.
A Ryan Homes
subdivision on the outskirts of town, the first new home construction in years,
is nearly built out and largely occupied. Another large development of
higher-priced homes is underway, and a block of city-center town homes is sold
out.
At a time
when commercial real state is on shaky footing after the pandemic, one of
several vacant downtown buildings is being converted to condominiums. And a
boarded-up black structure towering over City Hall - briefly home to a failed
bid to reincarnate the defunct E.F. Hutton investment firm brand - has
attracted investor interest with a high-tech research hub as a possible anchor,
one of several positive spillovers local development officials say they have
seen from the Intel chip plant being built near Columbus.
For their
part, city officials, local educators and the business community say that once
the short-term disruptions are overcome, a growing population will add to a
nascent revival.
"We
needed a workforce," to fill jobs in a resurgent local manufacturing
sector and staff a growing number of warehouse and distribution centers, said
Amy Donahoe, director of workforce development with the Greater Springfield
Partnership. "They are coming in and they are working hard and they want
to make money."