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There’s an old saying in journalism, “If it bleeds, it leads,” meaning that a story gets hotter once violence ensues. We can now add “If it meows, it’s news” to the list of fourth column expressions.
Let me be the first to tell you here that I am not going to solve this problem. The Mystery of the Missing Pets. Frankly, at this point Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot could be working together and the details would still be murky. And anyway, that’s not really the point.
Springfield’s migrant crisis was caused by Biden-Harris: Senate candidate Moreno
Regardless of the level of danger to our furry friends, this salacious story has focused the nation’s attention on Springfield’s otherwise ignored immigration and economic crises, created by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
“When I was little, there used to be bars on every corner, we’d listen to music in one place, there’d be a disco in another,” Terri, who at 60 works at the only hotel in downtown Springfield, told me. “Today, it’s completely different.”
Downtown Springfield is changing, and longtime residents say it’s for the worse. (David Marcus/Fox News Digital)
There’s a certain kind of city and town here, not unique to the Midwest but common there, that boasts an almost hauntingly grand old architecture that mocks the quiet decay of broken windows and empty storefronts. Springfield is an almost Platonic ideal of such a place.
Below Biden and Harris’ uncontrolled border program And amid a nearly endless stream of refugees, this new influx of mostly Haitian migrants is crushing any hopes of revival.
Vicki, who is retired and lives just outside of town, also told me stories of Springfield: trips to Woolworth’s with her grandmother and the bustling markets. She’s excited to bring some sparkle back to the city center.
Part of this effort is the Saturday farmers market, which was great, albeit with fewer people coming in, but there was no sign of refugees being integrated into the broader community. Next door, a new food hall served as a community gathering place.
I asked him if he thought the government had done enough to prepare the city for the arrival of 20,000 Haitian migrants and whether strong support systems were in place. “No, not at all,” he said with a smile.
I asked this because just a month ago I was in Harrisonburg, Virginia.It is an official federal refugee city and has taken in tens of thousands of people over the decades. As I wrote at the time, it’s remarkable how proud people there, on both sides of the aisle, are of how well the program works, and how much it helps newcomers assimilate.
English classes, job training, and temporary housing are available, but according to Vicki, Springfield lacks much of these and the invention of these programs is draining resources and making life difficult.
“I was at the DMV,” she told me. “It took a long time, customers were speaking seven languages and no one at the desk could translate.”
It’s not as appealing as barbecued pets, but it’s one of the many troubles this diabolically mismanaged refugee scheme has caused, and many residents are clearly feeling troubled by it.
People line up for food at the St. John’s Lutheran Church food pantry on September 13, 2024 in Springfield, Ohio.
Another striking difference between Harrisonburg’s success and Springfield’s disaster is that in the former, about 150 to 200 refugees were arriving per year over a period of decades. This could be managed and planned for. In Springfield, the number is thousands per year, and this has turned the situation into a full-blown emergency.
Among those who seem happy with this situation are a handful of factory owners and the city government. In a viral clip from CBS News this week, one such employer said, “Our Haitian colleagues come to work every day, they don’t have a drug problem, they’ll stay at their machines…they’re here to work.”
This sounds very similar to what Clark County Health Commissioner Chris Cook said, who told the Dayton Daily News in October 2023 that employers “love it when they come to work every day, pass a drug screening, and are willing to work overtime and work hard.
The local people are hardly convinced by this artificial discussion.
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None of the people I spoke to expressed any hostility toward migrants. “It’s not their fault, they were told to come here, but the government needs to do more,” says Yolanda, a black woman in her 30s who drives for Uber.
Sadly, Vice President Kamala Harris has no interest in these arguments. She let them in, but now they have become the problem of the good people of Springfield. She and Biden, or anyone else running the country, have no plan.
So, with idiots to their left saying their righteous anger is racist, and clowns on the right ripping off cat memes online, the people of Springfield are caught in the middle, and many feel like they’re being made fun of.
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I talked about this with a man in his 20s who works as a crane maintenance man but lives in Minneapolis, where there are similar immigration problems. He explained it as best he could, saying that immigrants should be taught “how to take care of a garden in a way that fits the American way of life.”
In Springfield, as in so many places across our country, that’s not happening, and both Native Americans and immigrants are paying a heavy price.
