Ohio newspaper urges JD Vance and Donald Trump to stay away

Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have been told to stay away from Ohio.

Journalist and author Ray Marcano wrote in a commentary for The Columbus Shipping that Trump and his running mate should not visit the city of Springfield after the former president claimed that immigrants had started eating pets.

“Donald Trump says he wants to visit Springfield soon. No, he shouldn’t. He should stay away,” Marcano wrote. “Trump and his sidekick, our manipulative Ohio Senator JD Vance, have spent the last two weeks spreading and amplifying vicious lies about the Haitian community eating cats and dogs.”

The city recently gained notoriety after Trump claimed that Haitian migrants were “eating cats and dogs” there during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on September 10.

“In Springfield, they eat the dogs, the people who came here,” he said at the debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. “They eat the cats. They eat the pets of the people who live there.”

Since then, Trump has said he plans to visit the city “in the next two weeks.”

Marcano said a Trump visit would be “like rubbing sandpaper dusted with salt on an open wound.” He would “continue to dehumanize the Haitian community, just as this country demonized Germans and Italians in the early 20th century, Asians in World War II, and today every immigrant with dark skin, whether from South America or the Caribbean.”

“What would hurt most would be to see Trump in Springfield being cheered on by his supporters while Haitians have to explain to their children why a man who wants to be the leader of the free world hates their people so much,” he wrote.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said a campaign visit by either candidate could raise concerns.

“The attention that is currently focused on Springfield makes the situation in Springfield seem very tense,” he said. “I would be concerned if either candidate visited our community.”

Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine wrote in The New York Times that it is disappointing that “Springfield has become the epicenter of anger over American immigration policy because it has long been a very diverse community.”

He attributed the boom in “manufacturing and job creation” to Haitian immigrants who have flocked to the city in recent years under the Immigration Parole Program and remained legally under temporary protection status.

“This is due in part to the huge influx of Haitian migrants who have come to the city to fill jobs over the past three years,” he wrote.

“As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, it saddens me that they and others continue to repeat claims without evidence and disparage legal immigrants in Springfield,” he said. “This rhetoric is damaging to the city and its people, and it is damaging to those who have spent their lives here.”