By Although liberals will likely never acknowledge it, there are problems connected with the dramatic increase in illegal immigration over the past few years. Americans all over the country are experiencing firsthand a crisis that Joe Biden’s open border policy has exacerbated.
While major cities all over the United States have pointed to the mass influx of illegal immigrants overwhelming city governments, no place may understand that more than the small town of Springfield, Ohio.
Springfield’s city manager, Bryan Heck, recently mailed a letter to the Ohio senators begging them for help because, despite the city’s continued development of housing projects, the sheer number of migrants arriving every week and living in the tiny midwestern town are overwhelming the city services, writes The New York Post.
“Springfield has seen a surge in population through immigration that has significantly impacted our ability as a community to produce enough housing opportunities for all,” Heck wrote. “Springfield’s Haitian population has increased to 15,000 – 20,000 over the last four years in a community of just under 60,000 previous residents, putting a significant strain on our resources and ability to provide ample housing for all of our residents.”
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, presented the letter in a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday as an example of how the swelling numbers are reducing the supply and increasing the cost of housing.
Vance cited how Springfield is “trying to build 5,000 new housing units, which is a very Herculean task in a town of about 55,000 people, but it’s also hospital services, it’s school services. There are a whole host of ways in which this immigration problem, I think, is having very real human consequences.”
Things came to a head recently in the small town, writes one outlet.
“It was 8:15am on a Tuesday morning when Hermanio Joseph, a 35-year-old Haitian national, drove a 2010 Honda Odyssey minivan into oncoming traffic.
A school bus was headed in the opposite direction, with dozens of children on board heading to their first day of class for the school year. One would never arrive.
Eleven-year-old Aiden Clark was thrown from the bus as it veered off the roadway and flipped. He died at the scene. Twenty-three other children were injured, including one seriously. Joseph was ultimately charged with two felonies: involuntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide.”
The incident sparked outrage and the anger began spilling over at a City Commission meeting.
For nearly two hours, residents came to the podium to speak. Some warned of an invasion of Haitians and the crime they allegedly would bring. Another person raged that the Haitian flag had been raised at City Hall as part of the Flag Day celebrations. Police officers stationed around the room shifted uneasily from foot to foot.
‘I want to know: Who’s bussing them in? Who’s responsible for that, and who can stop them from coming?’ one resident asked, echoing rumors that Haitian migrants had been arriving en masse on buses.”
Ohio Senator J.D. Vance has laid the blame at the feet of one man: Joe Biden.
“This self-imposed disaster is crushing the job prospects of our citizens, making it more difficult for Ohio families to find homes and draining social service programs funded by American taxpayers,” Vance told The Dayton Daily News. “People who are here illegally should be sent back to their home countries as soon as possible, and individuals here on temporary status should not expect to stay indefinitely.”
City officials have had to assure that their small town is not a “sanctuary city” despite Biden sending thousands there.
In April, reported The Springfield News-Sun, “Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said with an estimated 10,000 Haitian immigrants or more here and a 20% increase over the last three to five years, the city wanted to make the federal government aware of the situation and work together to get some support. The city has been in discussions with U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, and Rue previously said conversations about immigration with Turner prompted the creation of the Immigration Accountability Response Team.
‘With the current immigration policy, it’s affecting cities like our city,’ Rue said. ‘We’re trying to make sure that we’re doing it right as city leaders and bringing light to this. These populations are taxing our schools, taxing our healthcare system, and we just want to make sure it’s right.’
The Biden administration expanded the number of immigrants eligible for Temporary Protected Status, which Turner previously said opened the door for a large number of immigrants to come to Springfield without assistance or additional resources.
Rue said areas that have felt the most strain include housing, employment, safe transportation and health care. He said one-third of the babies born at Mercy Health — Springfield are Haitian.”
Republicans have claimed that Biden’s immigration policy will not just overwhelm small towns like Springfield, but also could undermine national security, explained NBC News.
The Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee is subpoenaing the Department of Homeland Security to demand that it release more information about immigrants with potential terrorism links who have crossed the southern border into the U.S.
The subpoena follows NBC News reporting on an Afghan migrant on the terrorist watchlist who was released inside the U.S. by Border Patrol, an Uzbek man who crossed the border and was arrested in Baltimore by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for potential links to the Islamic State terrorist group and over 400 migrants brought into the U.S. by an ISIS-linked human smuggling organization.
Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., said the new reports — as well as news that eight Tajik men with alleged ties to ISIS-K were arrested in the U.S. — led the committee to ask for more information.
NBC News reported in late June that about 0.014% of migrants who had tried to cross the border in fiscal year 2024, or fewer than 2 out of every 10,000, were on the terrorist watchlist. The total number who have tried to cross during the Biden administration is just over 1,700.”
The number is at least 20 percent larger than the same statistics under Trump.
Since January 2021, an estimated 12 million people have entered the country illegally, coming from more than 150 countries. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, is up for reelection this November.
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