NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor in Springfield, Ohio: One Man Told Me There Were Stray Cats Missing

WELKER: “NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor is in Springfield, Ohio. She joins me now. So, Yamiche, give us the reality check, what is actually happening in Springfield right now? What has the reaction been to this controversy?”

ALCINDOR: “Well, there’s been a lot of shock and really pain in the Haitian community here. A lot of the Haitian immigrants who came here came here legally. Most of them came here legally through federal programs. The city also advertised new manufacturing jobs as well as the city’s affordability to try to attract people here because this was a city that had lost something like 20,000 people and had dwindled down to about 60,000 people from a high of 80,000 people. So, this was really a place where people were — they felt like were going to welcoming them. But now there are some residents who say that they really don’t like the change. There is — I talked to one man who said that he doesn’t like the cultural changes. He doesn’t like the idea that there are people here that are changing the racial makeup of this city, saying that the city is sort of lost. He also said that there were, in his mind, claims that there were stray cats missing and sort of had this idea that maybe Haitians were abusing animals. Of course, city officials have said there’s no evidence of that. And Haitian migrants, there are people who are fleeing violence, gang violence in their country. So they were already traumatized when they got here. And I’m hearing that they’re just even more traumatized by this back-and-forth and are really saddened that former President Trump, someone who they say is seeking the highest office of the land, is really giving any kind of oxygen to what really is a baseless accusation.”