Donald Trump said he would carry out deportations in Springfield, Ohio, during a news conference on Friday. He also dismissed a question about bomb threats in the city that followed a racist smear campaign he and running mate J.D. Vance launched against immigrants living there.
“I can say this,” Trump said. “We're going to do massive deportations from Springfield, Ohio. Mass deportations. We're going to get these people out. We're going to send them back to Venezuela.”
Springfield, Ohio, has been the center of a racist conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating cats, causing chaos in the city. Local authorities have said the rumors are unfounded, but that hasn’t stopped conservatives from demonizing immigrants. On Thursday, a bomb threat prompted the city hall and other local buildings to be locked down. On Friday, two elementary schools were evacuated and one middle school was closed after police were directed to do so.
Most Haitian immigrants in Springfield live legally. Some have Temporary Protected Status, meaning they have a pending asylum application that allows them to live and work in the United States.
“They emptied their prisons in Venezuela, they emptied their criminals, they emptied the nests. They call them the nests of bad people. They are all in the United States now, and they are now taking over the cities. It is like an invasion from within. And we are going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country. And we are going to start in Springfield and Aurora,” Trump said.
Trump also criticized the city of Aurora, Colorado, where conservatives alleged that Venezuelan gangs had taken over apartment buildings. The mayor and a council member called the allegations “overblown.”
Trump also mentioned the cities of Aurora and Springfield during Tuesday’s presidential debate. “We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and mental hospitals,” Trump said. “You see what’s happening in cities all over the United States. Look at Springfield, Ohio. Look at Aurora, Colorado. They’re taking over cities. They’re taking over buildings. They’re violently storming towns.”
Trump also dismissed a question on Friday about bomb threats in Springfield, saying: “No, no, no, the real threat is what’s happening at our border, because there are thousands of people being killed by illegal immigrants coming in.”
Springfield Mayor Rob Rowe said the bomb threats contained anti-immigrant hatred: “There was enough negative language toward immigrants, toward the Haitian people, that it should be alarming enough.”
