BOMB THREATS HAVE been made at schools, homes and public buildings in Springfield, Ohio after Donald Trump spread conspiracy theories about the small US town’s Haitian immigrant community, leaving some in fear for their lives.

A city spokesperson said an emailed threat claimed bombs had been planted in the homes of Springfield’s mayor and other city officials.

A second email claimed bombs had been placed at locations including Springfield City Hall, a high school, a middle school, two elementary schools and the local office of the state motor vehicles bureau.

The mostly white city in the American Midwest has seen a boom in population in recent years, fueled mostly by Haitians attracted by its economic revival and new businesses needing to attract workers.

The community has been baselessly accused of stealing and eating people’s pets and causing a crime wave.

Republican candidate for president Donald Trump said at Tuesday’s presidential debate that “they’re eating dogs”, sparking an increase in tensions.

A bomb threat Thursday closed city hall and a local public school attended by many Haitian children.

Schools were evacuated for a second day Friday, and the FBI investigated threatening calls telling a Haitian community centre to “fucking leave,” the centre’s executive director told AFP.

“It’s a sad reality, putting people in panic,” said Viles Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center.

“We are trying to help them to understand what has happened is just because of a political agenda.”

“Some of them want to leave, some have already left,” said Romane Pierre, manager of the Rose Goute Haitian restaurant. He closed early, around 8pm on Thursday, worried about his staff having to walk home late at night.

In many ways, Springfield’s growing population was a success — and one specifically sought out by the city, which previously had a declining population typical of the post-industrial heartland.

City officials pushed an economic plan to attract new businesses, and it worked, attracting some 10-15,000 Haitians to a town that had a population of under 60,000 in 2020.

The growth has stressed the already tight housing market, emergency services, and the health and school systems — real problems, said Wes Babian, former pastor at the First Baptist church.

And the jobs revival has not translated into fixing systemic problems such as longstanding local poverty.

But Babian denounced what he said were growing “racial overtones” in residents’ complaints.

“There’s been a lot of controversy over the last year or so with regard to the new neighbors,” said Babian. “Certainly understandable in some respects, but it’s migrated to a much more negative, even dangerous level at some points.”

Many of the Haitans in Springfield have some sort of legal or protected status. Some have lived in the United States for years.

But they have been accused of being bussed into the town by the federal government or living grandly off public benefits while the local population languishes.

In reality, some Haitians arrived with their own funds and started businesses, like Philomene Philostin, a naturalised US citizen who owns a grocery store.

Others are barely scraping by, such as Fritz.

He arrived at the US-Mexican border five months ago, and was given an appointment to cross and seek asylum. He receives food assistance but nothing he can use to pay rent. He has found a night shift job at a food services company.

“But they haven’t paid me yet,” he said, and the housing situation for him, his two-year-old son and pregnant wife while they live at a friend’s house is precarious.

As he spoke to AFP downtown across from the evacuated city hall, a car drove by, with its occupants yelling out, “Fuck you!”

Since the presidential debate, Daniel, a Haitian who has lived in Springfield for four years under a legal protection called Temporary Protected Status, has stopped leaving his house unless it’s completely necessary.

“The threat is real,” he said. But he added that it is “not the entire community” spreading hate, explaining the people spreading the hateful rhetoric are in the minority.

Sitting on his front porch, an American flag fluttering outside, Vietnam War veteran William Thompson said “it’s the land of the free… They got an opportunity to come be free.”

© AFP 2024

Additional reporting from Press Association