Sunday morning, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was featured on This Week to touch base on the statements made by former President Donald Trump about Springfield, Ohio.
You can watch DeWine's interview in the player below:
During Tuesday's debate, Trump claimed Haitian immigrants were responsible for eating resident's pets in the city of Springfield.
In his interview, DeWine said there is no evidence of immigrants eating pets, and the Haitians in Springfield are there legally.
"They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in," DeWine said. "These Haitians came in to work for these companies. What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers, they're very happy to have them there. And frankly, that's helped the economy."
Schools and hospitals in the city have been forced to close this week due to bomb threats. Additionally, DeWine said there have been hate groups coming to the area and is calling on the rhetoric to stop.
“There are hate groups coming into Springfield; we don't need these hate groups,” DeWine said. “I saw a piece of literature yesterday that the mayor told me about from purportedly the KKK. Look, Springfield is a good city. They are good people; they are welcoming people.”
He said that with the influx of immigrants, there have been some problems, but the population has grown immensely, and many immigrants need primary care and support to learn how to drive.
“Well, sure, there's when you go from a population of 58,000 and add 15,000 people onto that, you're gonna have some challenges and some problems and we're addressing those, we're working on those every single day,” DeWine said. “Primary care is essential. The other thing we're working a lot on is, is driving. We have Haitians who frankly many times have not driven before, we need to do a get more drivers training and we're working on that.”
DeWine said he thinks the statements made about immigrants in Springfield are causing more harm than good, and the discussion of Haitians eating pets should stop.
“I think these discussions about Haitians eating dogs and cats and other things needs to stop. We need to focus on what is important,” DeWine said. “What is important is that we get primary care health to everyone in a very growing city that we do other things in regard to housing. These are kind of basic things that we need to do. We need to focus on those and not these, this discussion about Haitians eating dogs. It is just not helpful.”
Joe Cimperman, the executive director of Global Cleveland, told News 5 that he is grateful to the governor for speaking up. Cimperman says Northeast Ohio has a long history of welcoming Immigrants.
Each year, 1,500 refugees from all over the world make Cleveland home. In February, Cuyahoga County opened a new Welcome Center on Fulton Parkway to give those who come here access to key services.
Cimperman said they and other local leaders plan to issue a statement on Monday.
"It's a statement that I think you're going to hear from other leaders in Northeast Ohio," said Cimperman. "Just how important it is for us to maintain a sense of honesty and calm, but also not to give in to these rumors and lies. It's scary. It's dangerous."
Cimperman said that Cleveland is different than Springfield in one aspect: they have more bandwidth to absorb more people. He believes immigrants and refugees could be key to re-investment in abandoned storefronts.
“Once they learn English and becoming part of the workforce, then you see them doing things like starting their own businesses or fulfilling important roles. So, it's really a matter of people having the patience and the compassion to see, how can we help people?" said Cimperman.
