The Facts about Springfield's Haitian Immigrants
Radley Balko's story is long but well worth reading.
I’ll get to Part IV of my Occupy Monterey talk in the next few days.
The reason is that I read a long piece by Radley Balko that lays out a number of things I hadn’t known about Springfield, Ohio and about Haitian immigrants in Springfield.
I was skeptical about some of Trump and Vance’s claims. Now I’m not. I’m almost positive that these two gentlemen are wrong.
Some highlights:
Why Haitian immigrants settled in Springfield
The reason why so many Haitian immigrants ended up in Springfield lies at a point of convergence between the recent history of Haiti and the recent history of Springfield.
After the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010, the Obama administration allowed displaced people from that country to come to the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a policy created during the George H.W. Bush administration for refugees from countries in crisis. Thousands of Haitians took advantage of the opportunity.
Donald Trump revoked that status in 2019, infamously calling Haiti one of those “shithole countries” from which the U.S. should never accept immigrants. Trump would later add that all Haitian immigrants “probably have AIDS,” and lament that the U.S. doesn’t get more immigrants from better countries like Norway.
Trump’s TPS revocation threatened the immigration status of tens of thousands of Haitians who came after the earthquake, many of whom by then had children who were U.S. citizens. The Biden administration then reinstated TPS protection in 2021. This is why Trump and Vance blame Biden and Harris for Springfield.
This is a recurring pattern with immigration in the U.S. Immigrants settle in geographic clusters, close to other immigrants from the same country. This allows them to establish networks, find housing, and open and patronize restaurants and businesses that offer the comforts of home. This is why Patterson, New Jersey, has a “Little Lima.” In the mid-20th century, Peruvian immigrants settled in the city after taking jobs in area textile mills. It’s why Nashville has the country’s largest Kurdish community, and Minneapolis to large Somali and Hmong populations. Terre Heute, Indiana once had a thriving Syrian population; Lowell, Massachusetts has the country’s second largest Cambodian population. Rochester; New York has a large Turkish community; and Russian immigrants settled in places like Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
Reading this paragraph above, I was reminded of a point that Thomas Sowell often makes in his work on ethnic America and immigration. People don’t locate randomly. They go where they know people who are kind of like them. Sowell has demonstrated that fact over and over with various ethnic groups.
There is a lot of good information about jobs, wages, income, unemployment, and crime. I strongly recommend that you read the whole thing.
That essay was dripping with contempt for the white working class.
Thanks for link to Radley Balko.
My own mental model is that of the ~15k, some 1-5% will commit crimes or be Bad Guys. So easily 90% could be hard working, helpful, and positive, yet still there be an increase in problems because of the immigrants.
Local complaints might well be a combination of falsehoods and truth, including unprovable truth.
The serious question behind the issue: is there too much illegal immigration? Most of which is rightly blamed on Biden and Border Czar Harris.
With respect to the Liberal / Libertarian ideal of rule of law, all the illegals are criminals. The Libertarian ideal of legalize them all does solve the rule of law hypocrisy, but causes a massive welfare state failure. If there are borders, the laws regulating the borders must be enforced -- or else our society doesn't have rule of law. Thus, a big bit of anarcho-tyranny.