COLUMBUS — As Ohio communities, including Lima and Springfield, are responding to the influx of Haitian migrants that has taken place over the last several years, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has announced that his office will begin looking for ways to address this issue through the legal system.
In an announcement, published Monday on the Attorney General Office website, Yost said that these efforts to find legal ways to curb efforts by the federal government to send “an unlimited number of migrants to Ohio communities,” the announcement said, is a response to concerns over a large increase in Haitian migrants in Springfield, a Clark County community of approximately 60,000.
Kyle Koehler, a former state representative from the Springfield area who is now running for state senate, was invited to speak about the issue at the Shelby County Republican Party’s Meet a Candidate Night last week. Koehler said Clark County’s Job and Family Services have registered over 20,000 Haitian refugees; Springfield’s population has hovered around 60,000 since the turn of the century.
“This is absurd — Springfield has swollen by more than a third due to migrants,” Yost said in a statement in the release. “How many people can they be expected to take? What are the limits to the federal government’s power? Could the federal government simply funnel into Ohio all the millions of migrants flooding in under the current administration’s watch?”
Yost is not the only state official that addressed this issue Monday. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted outlined what he said were concerns voiced to him by local leaders about the situation in Springfield.
These included a lack of assimilation, with language barriers impeding the efforts of educators and healthcare providers, highway safety issues due to language barriers and a lack of highway safety training, increased costs for healthcare services, especially in areas like translation and increases in diseases like tuberculosis. He also noted that employers are hiring many Haitians “to work in food processing plants, manufacturing and in warehouse and distribution facilities,” the post read.
“What is happening in Springfield and across America is a direct result of the Biden-Harris immigration policy,” Husted wrote in the post.
Springfield, Ohio
Haitian Immigrants overwhelming Springfield, Ohio have made the national news. Last week I went there and spent time in the community talking to local residents and officials. Below is a summary of the facts and perspectives that were shared with me during my…
— Jon Husted (@JonHusted) September 9, 2024
Yost said in the release that the rapid increase in the Haitian population in Springfield has created a strain on community resources and that residents have “complained of migrants causing car crashes, stealing property — including livestock, squatting in homes and killing wildlife for food.”
In a report Monday from the Springfield News-Sun, the Springfield Police Division said in response to social media reports of pets being stolen and eaten that they have not received any such reports.
Sidney Daily News editor Bryant Billing contributed to this report. Billing can be reached at [email protected].
