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Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, are betting they have more to win than to lose by refusing to back off shocking claims about Haitian migrants who are straining an Ohio city’s resources.
Mr. Trump has centered his campaign on immigration. It has been a catchall for his warnings — and promises — on the economy, jobs, crime, culture and national security.
The decision to double down on their claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating people’s pets — which state and local officials dispute and others warn is jeopardizing the safety of Haitian migrants — has kept a bright light shining on a broader message directed at voters in nearby battleground states.
“He is trying to say to voters in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that this can happen to your hometown,” said Steve Mitchell, a Michigan-based GOP strategist. “You can have a quiet, nice town, and all of a sudden, you are invaded by 30,000 immigrants who don’t speak your language, who have a different value system, who have different ways of doing things.
“In short, it is almost an invasion and takeover by foreign nationals in your community that will flip upside down everything you ever had in your life,” he said.
Others have puzzled over the Trump team’s approach.
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They question whether Mr. Trump will turn off a small pool of moderate-minded voters who remain undecided in the presidential race and could be turned off by the negative headlines.
On Monday, city officials in Springfield, which has a population of about 60,000 people, said they were canceling a cultural festival scheduled for next week because of safety concerns. The city had to evacuate local schools and government buildings last week because of bomb threats referencing Haitian migrants.
According to the Pew Research Center, immigration is a more prominent issue for voters in the 2024 presidential election than in 2020.
Roughly six in 10 voters say immigration is “very important” to their vote, a 9-point jump from four years ago.
That could be good news for Mr. Trump. Pew — and nearly every poll — has shown that voters trust Mr. Trump more than Ms. Harris on the issue.
Mr. Mitchell said the risk for Mr. Trump is that he will be labeled a bigot and a xenophobe.
“But those are things that he has been called since 2016,” he said.
Mr. Trump promoted the claims about Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats, and Mr. Vance of Ohio continues to defend the accusation.
They encountered stern blowback from the mainstream media and cable news hosts, who say their amplification of false rumors led to the evacuation of local schools and government buildings because of bomb threats.
The threats have referenced the influx of Haitian migrants.
Mr. Vance pushed back at critics, saying on CNN he is simply relaying stories from his constituents about how Springfield has “suffered terribly” and its resources have been overwhelmed by the influx of migrants as a result of the Biden-Harris approach to immigration.
“My attitude is to listen to my constituents,” Mr. Vance said. “Sometimes they are going to say things that people don’t like, but they are saying things that people don’t like because their town has been overwhelmed, and it is my job to fight for them and protect them.”
“Kamala Harris opened the border, and now these people are suffering,” he said. “The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
State and city officials have said there is no evidence related to the allegations of Haitian migrants eating pets. However, they have been upfront about the challenges the community has faced from the influx of upwards of 20,000 Haitian immigrants who moved into the town of roughly 60,000 people in the last three years.
Most are in the U.S. legally under the Biden administration’s special programs for Haitian migrants. Many moved to Springfield to work in manufacturing jobs.
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