Haitian refugees ‘don’t understand the laws,’ former lawmaker says amid fatal wreck, cultural clashes
Former State Rep. Kyle Koehler argues Springfield is a ‘wonderful town’
Published September 12, 2024 4:25pm EDT
Former Ohio State Rep. Kyle Koehler discusses the migrant influx in Springfield, Ohio.
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio – An Ohio town that has seen its population swell with thousands of Haitian refugees has had to battle differences in culture and even driving practices as it adjusts to its new reality.
“We’ve got an influx of folks that have come in, and I think we were a little bit shocked that it was close to 20,000 people in a community of 60,000, and that’s caused some issues between the folks that live here and the folks that are coming in,” former Ohio State Rep. Kyle Koehler told Fox News Digital.
The comments come as Springfield, which is located roughly 50 miles west of Columbus, has entered the national spotlight in recent weeks, most recently when former President Donald Trump pointed to the town during one of his responses in Tuesday’s debate.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said during a response to a question about immigration. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
The issue has also caught the attention of Ohio Republican senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who argued that the Biden administration’s “open border” policies “have flooded Springfield, Ohio, with thousands of illegal Haitians who are sucking up social services and destroying a small town here in Ohio.”
“We need to deport illegals, not invite them to wreak havoc on our communities like Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris have done,” Moreno told Fox News Digital.
While local officials and multiple media outlets have disputed the point that Trump raised in the debate, there is still a new reality faced by longtime members of the Springfield community. Chief among them, according to Koehler, are cultural differences between locals and the Haitian refugees who are new to the town.
Venezuelan Migrants In Denver Face Hardship, Homelessness Amid Struggles for Legal Work
The severe political and economic turmoil in Venezuela has led to a massive number of families reaching the United States in search of a better life. However, several migrants are still destitute, often relying on the kindness of strangers to survive. Some, including pregnant women, have even ended up sleeping on the streets.
It is often not easy to obtain work legally due to the expensive and complicated paperwork. In addition, several people have arrived in communities that are divided over how much support they should give to these newcomers, the Border Report mentioned.
Ivanni Herrera, an immigrant from Venezuela, was asked to leave a Denver homeless shelter with her four-year-old son Dylan last November. She was eight months pregnant then.
Herrera and her son were forced to go into the cold night, pulling a suitcase with donated clothes and blankets she got from the Microtel Inn & Suites. This was one of 10 hotels in Denver where more than 30,000 migrants, many from Venezuela, have stayed over the past two years.
They first walked to Walmart, where they used money they had collected from begging, to buy a tent. They waited until it got dark to set up their new home on a grassy area along a busy road in Aurora, a nearby suburb known for its immigrant community.
Related video: Denver says migrants are facing evictions at a growing rate (KDVR-TV Denver)
El Paso on high alert as dangerous Venezuelan gang described as ‘MS-13 on steroids’ surges into US
Members of Tren de Aragua have already crossed into the US
The Mexican border state of Chihuahua is on alert for members of a violent Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua, or TdA, after receiving reports that members of the gang were moving through the state to cross into the U.S. near El Paso, Texas.
Chihuahua Secretary of Public Safety Gilberto Loya warned Monday that Mexican authorities have seen a large number of individuals they believe are members of TdA operating in the state and passing through to cross the U.S. border with Mexico near El Paso, according to a report from the Latin Times.
The report comes after the Treasury Department in July sanctioned TdA as a transnational criminal organization, noting that the gang has committed human trafficking, extortion, money laundering and drug trafficking that pose a “deadly criminal threat” across the Western Hemisphere.
A Texas National Guard soldier stands on patrol near the banks of the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, on April 2. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“Tren de Aragua leverages its transnational networks to traffic people, especially migrant women and girls, across borders for sex trafficking and debt bondage,” the Treasury Department said in a statement at the time. “Tren de Aragua members often kill them and publicize their deaths as a threat to others.”
U.S. officials warned earlier this month that the gang, which originated in Aragua, Venezuela, is infiltrating the U.S., while Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas., has described TdA as “MS-13 on steroids.”
“They’re extremely aggressive. It’s not as if they’re a passive group, or they want to quietly go about things,” Gonzales said in a phone interview with Fox News Digital earlier this month. “They’re coming from Venezuela, one of the most war-torn countries over the last decade. So, they’re battle-hardened in many ways. And they’ve made this trek from there to here. But they are also becoming… more organized and more brazen.”
VENEZUELAN GANG TREN DE ARAGUA GIVES ‘GREEN LIGHT’ TO MEMBERS TO ATTACK COPS: OFFICIALS
Members of the gang are suspected of being behind a recent video that captured a group of men armed with handguns and rifles bursting through the doors of an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, that residents say has been overrun by gang activity.
“This is organized. They patrol the property with guns visibly, like they’re not trying to hide them. There’s no repercussion. These are ghosts,” said one resident who spoke with Fox News Digital on the condition of anonymity.