CHARLEROI, PA., A small Pennsylvania town has been thrown into a national conversation about immigration into the U.S, after former President Trump pointed to it as a victim of mass Haitian migration --with some residents saying they believe the town is now backing the former president in November.
"The small 4,000-person town of Charleroi, Pennsylvania, have you heard of it?" Trump said in September in Tucson, Arizona. "What a beautiful name, but it's not so beautiful now. It has experienced a 2,000% increase in the population of Haitian migrants under Kamala Harris."
Charleroi, in Washington County, is a small town by the Monongahela River, that has seen a significant influx of immigrants -- particularly from Haiti -- in recent years. But the extent of that influx is disputed.
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Some officials and residents say that talk of them being overwhelmed is overstated. They say that the numbers have been increasing, but it isn’t the 2,000% Trump spoke of. Officials say the last census showed around 700 Haitians in the town of 4,000. They also say that they are helping revitalize a town, finding employment including at a nearby food processing plant.
"This has been taking place since like 2015," Charleroi Borough Manager Joe Manning told Fox News Digital. "The way it's been portrayed that this was some unexpected surge in illegal immigrants is not the case. First of all, they're all here legally, and there's been no disruption to the community or anything like that."
"Everybody thinks that because of what's been said, that our lives have been upended in some way. And that's just not the reality," he said.
He acknowledged that there were some who were upset by the change: "But by and large, the community, they just live and let live."
Others disagreed.
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"The Haitian invasion," resident Kevin Armstrong, whose house sported enormous pro-Trump banners, said. "It’s sad, they've taken over our town."
Armstrong said his car insurance had been increased due to the number of uninsured drivers in the area. He also said he was pleased that former President Trump mentioned Charleroi.
"That was amazing. I mean, for the president of the United States to recognize a small town like this and what's going on, it's bigger than me and you. That's at the highest level in the land right there. And for him to notice that or for him to hear about that and bring it up into a speech, that's huge."
Jeannine Motycki, however, told Fox News Digital that Trump "embellished just a tad."
"If we had a 2,000% influx, the streets would be lined. We don't have that many homes, we don't have that much land."
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But she said there had been issues: "We do have a very diverse culture clash, it’s not a Haitian issue, it’s a culture issue in my opinion."
"Do I think it’s destroyed the town? No, I think personally it has destroyed more of the locals in town with their ways of thinking. They’re not conforming to our culture, that’s a fact, they have their own culture and they still live by their culture," she said.
"There’s so much hate here, and racism runs rampant," she added.
Another woman pointed to the number of local businesses immigrants opened, and said that Trump's comments had divided the town, saying "it seems there's now a divide in our town, even more so than there was before."
Many who spoke to Fox News Digital were happy to speak at length about their grievances, but were not prepared to give their full names -- concerned about being targeted by neighbors or employers.
But some complaints were similar to those in Springfield, Ohio, which too was the focus of the effects of mass migration in September. Residents Fox spoke to mentioned bad driving as a regular feature in the town, as well as the pressure on social services including on schools.
"More than probably half of the population here is them now at this point?" one resident with Trump paraphernalia outside her house said. "So if there's only so many houses, so many resources in any town, of course, they're going to be affected. So that's the other thing…there's been multiple burglaries, robberies, accidents, constantly, sirens going off all the time, people having car accidents, driving the wrong way, going the wrong directions down one way roads."
Another resident described it as "chaos."
"It’s like playing dodgeball with your car every day because you don't know you have to stop everywhere you're on because you don't know if they're going to stop when they're coming on a road. You got to look both ways on a one-way street because you don't even know."
However, the town’s police say that there has not been an increase in 911 calls or reported traffic accidents in recent years, with both numbers staying relatively stable.
"I would have to say that out of our call volume, [immigrants] may be 10 to 15% of our call volume, and the rest of that's all, you know, the homegrown Americans that you're dealing with," Police Chief Chad Zelinsky told Fox News Digital.
"Call wise, they're no different than than anyone else. And our numbers haven't gone up because of them," he said.
The political leanings of the town are clearly now towards the former president. While there were a handful of Harris-Walz signs, they were significantly outnumbered by Trump-Vance signs -- including mockups of Trump as Rambo and anti-Biden signs with expletives.
Manning said the county as a whole is turning Republican.
"As far as how the town leans, a lot of the folks on council are Democrats, I think we have maybe three Republicans, but Washington County itself has turned very much Republican so I would fully expect that the vote in November is going to go Republican."
Others said they believed the town was firmly in the Trump camp.
"Oh it’s definitely Trump, "laughed Motycki, a former borough council member, when asked who she thought the town was voting for. She said the town traditionally was more Democratic. "I don’t see too many Harris supporters. There's not many."
Another local, who said his name was Dave, was confident that the migrant issue was having an effect: "Absolutely it's having a political effect. I haven't seen many Walz-Harris signs anywhere. I mean, I've seen a few here and there, but for every Harris sign I see, I see 10 to 15 Trump signs."
