Another day, another nightmare for residents of Springfield, Ohio, which rocketed into the national spotlight thanks to Donald Trump and JD Vance.
Bomb threats again forced two schools to evacuate on Monday, and the city's cultural fest was canceled amid security concerns fueled by anti-immigrant rhetoric and pet-eating conspiracy theories. So far, city schools have received at least 33 bomb threats, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday while visiting Springfield.
He said the threats turned out to be hoaxes and he alleged that all originated from “overseas,” but declined to identify any country or countries.
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While the governor dismissed the credibility of ongoing violent threats and said Springfield schools would re-open, Wittenberg University, which is located in the city, announced it would go fully remote and canceled all upcoming on-campus events until at least Sep. 22.
The liberal arts college attributed their decision to directly receiving new threats and “the context of ongoing threats of violence on our campus and in the Springfield community.”
Meanwhile, students at two elementary schools were forced out of their classrooms Monday and transported to another school district, according to Springfield officials.
“I’ve kinda seen it coming,” one mother said, adding that she only dropped her children off at school because it was picture day. “It seems to be each day a new school.”
On Sept. 13, two other elementary schools in the small southwestern Ohio town were evacuated. The day prior, a middle school was forced to close. In the past week, 21 buildings in Springfield have been placed on lockdown, evacuated, closed or searched because of the threats, according to Spectrum News.
“I don’t know what the end goal here is, the people aren’t going anywhere,” the mother continued. “We just need to find a way to make it work instead of invoking fear and separation.”
She and other parents and caregivers expressed frustration about the disruption, with a grandparent telling journalist Oliya Scootercaster he hoped that authorities catch whomever is responsible for the threats and “lock them up forever or deport them."
One Springfield father squarely blamed Trump for the ongoing security concerns because of his claims during the presidential debate last week when he said, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
“He can’t speak like that, people will react,” the Ohio father said.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, who reportedly plans to visit Springfield in the coming days, and Vance, his running mate, have both adopted talking points from a far-fetched, right-wing conspiracy theory tinged with xenophobia that was hatched on social media. The conspiracy targets Haitian migrants, accusing them of creating chaos in the small Ohio city.
During a recent campaign rally, the former president even vowed to remove Haitian migrants from Springfield. And on Monday, he suggested a more wide-scale deportation in a posting on X.
Vance all but admitted Sunday on CNN that he and Trump are fabricating their claims about pet-eating immigrants to draw attention to immigration, their top campaign issue, in spite of the threats of violence and upheaval to daily life in the small southwestern town.
“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes,” the GOP vice presidential pick said. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it,” Vance clarified. “I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’ policies. Her policies did that. But yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris’ policies.”
Gov. DeWine on Sunday slammed the conspiracy theory perpetuated by Trump and Vance as a “piece of garbage,” telling ABC News that “Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work.”
He echoed his defense of local Haitians who have been targeted by the far-right conspiracy, saying they are hard-working citizens, on Monday.
“One company told me, ‘I don’t think we would even be here without the Haitian employees,’” the governor said.
Still, Trump persisted, saying, “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants and that’s a terrible thing that has happened.”
