Donald Trump has no plans to visit Springfield, Ohio, despite pledging to do so at a rally last week, Newsweek can reveal.
The city was unwittingly thrust into the national spotlight this month after the former president and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, amplified claims that its Haitian migrant community were killing and eating residents' pets.
At a rally in Long Island on September 18, Trump said that he planned to visit Springfield in the next two weeks.
However, two sources familiar with the matter have said Trump is not expected to visit the city in the near future.
It comes as Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine warned that a visit from Trump would "strain" relations with the local community and slammed the former president for what he called "hurtful" rhetoric.
Springfield became a focal point in the immigration debate after unproven rumors began spreading on social media that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets.
One post online claimed a woman had eaten a cat outside a home in Springfield—a city that has seen a sharp increase in migrants over the past two years. Many of those migrants have come from Haiti and are in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that allows them to live and work without fear of deportation.
The pet-eating rumors gained further attention when Trump brought them up during the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats ... They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame," Trump said.
While those rumors started as Facebook gossip that has since been debunked, Springfield has seen a rise in tensions over the influx of migrants, which by some counts has added up to 20,000 people to a city of 58,000.
A year ago, a Haitian man driving with a foreign license crashed into a school bus on the first day of classes, killing an 11-year-old boy and injuring two dozen other children in a tragic case that quickly became a flashpoint in the broader debate over immigration in America.
Gov. DeWine was recently asked if he had any updates about a possible visit from Trump.
"I've heard absolutely nothing about that. You know, we normally will get a couple of days notice, because the Secret Service will come in, and then we kind of, kind of get a feel when that's going to happen," the governor said.
DeWine stressed that any presidential candidate is welcome, but it will put a "strain on the community".
Under the Biden administration, the TPS program allows migrants from Haiti, as well as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, to enter the U.S. legally if they have a sponsor and meet strict vetting criteria. Those who are eligible can wait within the U.S. while their longer-term immigration status is decided on.
J.D. Vance, Trump's running mate who is also the junior senator from Ohio, said last week: "If Kamala Harris waves a wand, illegally, and says these people are now here legally, I'm still going to call them illegal aliens."
"An illegal action by Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. That is not how this works," he added.
Immigration is a favored issue for Republicans, with a poll conducted by The New York Times/Sienna College suggesting that voters trust Trump over Vice President Kamala by a margin of 10 percentage points.
A recent Gallup poll showed that, for the first time since 2005, a majority of Americans would like to see a reduction in immigration.
The increasing demand for tighter immigration controls is now bipartisan, with the poll showing a 15-point surge among Republicans, an 11-point increase among independents, and a 10-point increase among Democrats compared to a year ago.
Both Democrats and Republicans are striving to convince voters they can solve the crisis: Trump has promised mass deportations of unlawful migrants and Harris has pledged to revive President Biden's bipartisan border security bill, which was killed at Trump's request.
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About the writer
Dan Gooding is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. His focus is reporting on immigration and border security. ... Read more
