American citizens are “other people,” according to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who used a CBS interview to praise Haitian migrants for revitalizing Springfield, Ohio.
The Haitian migrants “have helped Springfield really come back… [because] the Haitians who are living there and employed there, they came there to work, and they came there because there were jobs that were not being filled by other people [emphasis added],” DeWine told CBS News’ Colombian-born migration reporter.
DeWine — who served as a conventional GOP Senator from 1995 to 2006 — continued to praise the city’s imported population of roughly 20,000 non-citizen Haitian workers, renters, and consumers:
If you talk to the employers in Springfield who are employing Haitians, they will tell you that these are people who have opened restaurants, they’ve opened other businesses, they’ve rehabbed houses, they’ve created jobs as well as filled jobs, and so to lose them and have them not be able to work anymore and possibly taken out of this country is frankly a blow to Springfield and it’s a blow to to the state of Ohio.
If you look at the growth we’ve had in Ohio — we’ve had some growth — 60 percent of that growth has come from immigrants.
Americans do not have a broadly accepted term for politicians who praise and prioritize migrants over their own citizens, said immigration experts.
DeWine “is not talking about Americans at all,” said Jessica Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies.
He’s trying to make the case for the employers of the Haitians who were imported into the state… so that those employers could avoid having to try to hire Americans, so that employers could bypass Americans and ignore Americans… Dewine and other politicians want to define the issue… as if there are no consequences for Americans, and no effects on Americans.
One term to describe such politicians, she suggested, would be “Opportunity Zone” Republicans. “He’s ignoring [Americans] as a variable in the calculations… Americans don’t enter the equation for him… [and] reporters let him get away with this,” she said.
“Economic zone [Republicans] is a pretty good descriptor,” said Joshua Lisec, an author who has written a book about the migration’s damage to citizens in Springfield. “There’s a number of people who’ve said something to the effect of ‘America is not an economic zone, but our home.’”
Americans in Springfield “use the word ‘Elites’ to refer to the Republicans and the country club people and the landowners, real estate owners, and businessmen who profit off the Haitians,” Lisec said, adding:
I refer to them as the “Coalition of Haiti First”… and I’ve heard [locals] using and picking it up and referring to the “Haiti First” crowd, whereas those of us here, the locals, we are “Ohio First.” So people have been making hats and T-shirts all around Springfield, and wearing “Ohio First” hats and shirts in response to the “Haiti First” community.
“Globalist Republicans” works for Kevin Lynn, founder of the U.S. Tech Workers group, which opposes the white-collar visa programs that have forced millions of Americans out of their white-collar careers. He added:
All they care about is extraction, what they can take financially from America’s working classes. That’s their priorities.
On July 30, DeWine announced plans for another $1 billion tax rebate to Ohio businesses.
“If approved in August, that would bring the total amount paid to public and private employers during the DeWine administration to $10.2 billion,” the Columbus Dispatch reported.
In contrast to DeWine, most migrant advocates try to hide their support for migrants over Americans by hiding the moral and legal distinction between migrants and citizens. In Springfield, for example, pro-migration advocate Rev. Carl Ruby recently claimed that “Trump’s attack on TPS for Haitians is an attack on Springfield, Ohio’s entire community.”
“Smarter politicians,” said Vaughan, “say, ‘You know, we understand that this [migrant influx] is difficult in the short run for American communities to absorb, and it’s going to take some getting used to, but eventually people will assimilate and learn more and learn English.’”
DeWine is “only looking at one side of the balance sheet,” she added.
But “Americans can see what is happening to their family members and their communities,” she said, adding:
There’s definitely a lot more of awareness of the scale — not only guest worker programs — but immigration more generally, and especially because of the experience of the last four years when we took in 9 million new illegal workers. That was a shock to the labor market that Americans understand, even if politicians don’t.
Trump’s push to deport the Haitian migrants is now forcing pro-migration media outlets to begin listening to the Americans who voted Trump into power.
“For three years, people in this city have been telling their story at council podiums on the record… and for two years, the country talked about [you] instead of listening to you,” local publisher Jack Windsor told a mid-July meeting of pro-America advocates in Springfield, the local pro-migration newspaper reported on July 22.
“Our rents [are] better than double,” said Bruce Clay, an advocate for the city’s many homeless Americans, the Dayton Daily News reported. “It takes $1,030 to get in — plus first and last month’s rent — to get in what I call a dump, and I think it’s sad… You’ve got two and three, four people living in a house trying to make a living now,” Clay added.
DeWine did not attend the Springfield meeting.
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