A pair of political strategists disagreed over the situation in Springfield, Ohio on CNN Monday, after days of former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) pushing racist conspiracy theories about Haitian migrant workers in the community abducting and eating people's cats and dogs — to the point where violence is flaring up.
Madison Gesiotto, a GOP political strategist, acknowledged Vance's claims were fake — but insisted he was just, clumsily, trying to draw attention to a real harm being done by immigrants.
Springfield residents "really care" about Haitian migrants, she said, "but they're concerned about how their city has been completely overwhelmed by almost 20,000 Haitian refugees being brought in by the Biden-Harris administration in a change in immigration policy in which, not only did they bring them there and give them that temporary status, but then they went on to allow up to six family members to come as well. This is a very small town." She went on to claim the town's schools are being "overwhelmed," a claim for which she provided no evidence.
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The claim that there are 20,000 Haitians in Springfield is also dubious; the most recent American Community Survey statistics show there are fewer than 5,000 in the entire state of Ohio, many of whom came to fill the state's labor shortage for factory work. Springfield's city manager has stated the figure is 15,000-20,000 in a letter to senators, but it is possible he just has the number of Haitian migrants confused with the number of total foreign-born people of any origin, which is close to that figure.
Julie Roginsky, Democratic strategist, former Fox News contributor, and director of the women's empowerment group Lift Our Voices, had a much blunter message about Vance's behavior.
"First of all, it's disgusting, because here's J.D. Vance, who represents Ohio, literally inviting attacks on the town that he represents. They've shut down — I mean, there've been attacks on the schools, attacks on the hospitals ... effectively shutting this down down because of a fake meme that he admitted he had to help create. And so as a result of all of this, what kind of representative is he for the state of Ohio, and what kind of representative will he be for the United States of America, when he has no problem sending death threats to his own constituents in order to score political points? It's disgusting."
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