President Donald Trump’s ending of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants is proving to be a great success as new reports have indicated that one of the country’s largest populations of Haitian individuals, Springfield Ohio, has seen almost 80% of the community self-deport. Now community leaders are painting a narrative to try and drum up some sympathy for migrants from Haiti creating doom and gloom scenarios in the wake of the mass exodus.
In fact, community leaders are saying that the Springfield community could experience a crisis surrounding vacant homes now that such a large portion of the Haitian population has decided to return home. Boarded-up and abandoned houses have been a problem for Springfield for a long time, with many attempts to fix the issue failing to produce results.
Haitian business owners in the Springfield area spoke with the media and experienced a decrease in business and profit since the wave of immigrants, uncertain about their immigration status, opted to leave rather than remain in the country illegally. Haitian families said that many of their own have fled the town due to fear of being deported following the Supreme Court’s ruling on TPS.
According to Spectrum News, longtime Springfield resident and assistant executive director for the Clark County Land Bank, Kara Van Zant, says they have been burning the midnight oil to try and renovate or remove abandoned properties. “With vacant lots, I know that we have tax-foreclosed properties, which is a number that we use quite often that means they are officially been left, so about 500 parcels in Clark County, primarily in the City of Springfield,” Van Zant explained.
Leaders and liberal residents like Van Zant are worried that if more of these families decided to self-deport, more houses will sit empty for longer stretches of time, noting that the work the city government has been doing in recent years to improve neighborhoods will be undone and cost taxpayers even more money.
“It’s incredibly expensive,” Clark County Land Bank Executive Director Ethan Harris stated. “Just a basic site of this is going to be a couple million dollars from beginning to end, full remediation.” The group made a presentation to the city council, saying they are getting funds from the state and have wrapped up several projects and are set to focus on the West side of the city next.
“If we didn’t have those funds coming down from the state, we would be stuck with all of those brownfields and blight in our community,” Harris stated. “I dont care if they committed suicide in the street. America is for Americans and legal vetted immigrants. No free shit forever more. Any that come here even legally – if you dont assimilate G.T.F.O. You spew anti American bulls**t G.T.F.O. No retreat no surrender……. enough bulls**t,” said BrokenArrowNV in a reply to a video shared about the phenomenon.
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“As an Ohioan…. Bye! If we aren’t or won’t take care of our own…. Then WHY do we import? I mean honestly, is it all just about votes?? If so then FINE let the candidates or the party pay! Let those candidates build refugee housing in their OWN neighborhoods! of us who come from families that had to / and WANTED to assimilate and claw their way to the American Dream! It’s just gross!” said another user.
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video