Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, on Friday criticized former US president Donald Trump and his election running mate, JD Vance, for repeating racist rightwing claims about Haitian immigrants eating other residents’ pets in the city of Springfield, Ohio.
The conspiracy theories have caused uproar and led to an onslaught of threats and harassment.
In a guest essay published in the New York Times on Friday, DeWine said it is “disappointing” that Springfield “has become the epicenter of vitriol over America’s immigration policy”, specifically calling out Trump and Vance for amplifying disinformation.
“As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield,” DeWine wrote. “This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.”
DeWine said Trump and Vance were raising important issues about the “Biden administration’s failure to control the southern border”.
But the governor, who said he was born in Springfield, added: “But their verbal attacks against these Haitians – who are legally present in the United States – dilute and cloud what should be a winning argument about the border.”
DeWine’s comments have received mixed reactions from top Ohio Democrats.
Some have supported DeWine’s essay amid vitriol aimed at Haitian immigrants in Springfield. Allison Russo, Ohio state representative and minority whip, celebrated DeWine’s essay in a post to X.
“I applaud [DeWine] for this fair and very thoughtful op-ed about [Springfield, Ohio] and the Haitian immigrants who are working hard to build a future there,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, Ohio state senate leader Nickie Antonio told the Guardian that she agreed with DeWine’s essay, but was “disappointed” that DeWine is still supporting Trump and Vance in the 2024 presidential election.
“What the governor left out with his entire [essay], which I think was beautiful, is that Trump and JD Vance started this whole thing to begin with and they continue it,” Antonio said.
“They are continuing to beat the drum, encouraging violence, hatred, discrimination of people who are legally in our country, in our state and in that community”.
Antonio added that DeWine is a “fine and decent person” who has done positive things for Ohio, but added: “I don’t know how any reasonable person at this moment could put their partisan affiliation in front of decency and some kind of sense of the common good, because there’s none of that with these kinds of statements.”
Trump said on Wednesday that he plans to visit Springfield “in the next two weeks”.
Both DeWine and the mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, also a Republican, spoke out against such a visit over security concerns.
“A visit from the former president will undoubtedly place additional demands on our safety infrastructure,” said Rue during a Thursday press conference. “Should he choose to change his plans, it would convey a significant message of peace to the city of Springfield.”
DeWine had previously questioned dehumanizing rumors targeting Haitian immigrants in Springfield.
In an interview with CBS News last week, DeWine said that the rumor began on the internet, which “can be quite crazy sometimes”.
DeWine added: “Mayor [Rob] Rue of Springfield says, ‘No, there’s no truth in that.’ They have no evidence of that at all. So, I think we go with what the mayor says. He knows his city.”
Meanwhile, schools in Springfield received more than 30 bomb threats after the inflammatory rumors became national news, despite there being no evidence to support them, and Trump brought up the topic in the presidential debate against his Democratic rival for the White House, Kamala Harris.
DeWine has since deployed Ohio state highway patrol to provide security.
“Bomb threats – all hoaxes – continue and temporarily closed at least two schools, put the hospital on lockdown and shuttered City Hall,” he wrote.
