'Please give me a reason to stay' — desperate Springfield, Ohio, citizens speak on Haitian migrant crisis

Below is a selection of citizen statements from the City of Springfield, Ohio, Commission meetings from August 13 and August 27.

David: 'We don't have the resources to do this properly'

Springfield has a long-term population of 57,910, I believe, as of May of this year. It's hard to know the exact number, but I count a population of 20,000 newcomers.

This has resulted in a number of issues. There have been firsthand reports [of] wrong-way drivers on one-way streets, drivers ignoring stop signs and red lights and other traffic issues.

There is the impact on businesses having to deal with language, cultural differences. There is strain on public resources, both governmental and private services, including health.

Part of our response is to help the newcomers adjust to our culture by offering a variety of training, including learning English, how to drive, and other things like simple customs of waiting in line for your turn instead of barging to the front of the line.

We don't have the resources to do this properly ... and it depends on how many of the newcomers are willing to try and adjust to the customs and laws of their host.

I would like to ask with a rhetorical question to the commission, who have taken an oath to protect and serve citizens of Springfield, Ohio: What are you going to do to address this situation?

Shannon: 'These are not civilized people'

I was out and about yesterday driving around Springfield. I was looking at the giant holes in some of our buildings. I noticed all of the old familiar spots bearing new signs in an unfamiliar language.

I watched as groups of strangers walked around the city like lost tourists, and it was like the punch in the gut. A terrible sadness came over me, and I began to cry. I immediately started to think back to when I was little, walking from my grandma's house on South Fountain through downtown and all the way to Snyder Park, going to Wren's to get new school clothes and shoes.

And now all those warm memories are becoming fuel to the fire of anger inside of me. I feel like we have been invaded by some sort of pest. I'm angry that my friends and family are packing up and moving away.

I'm angry that foreigners are using up the resources that were set up for the Americans that reside here. I'm angry that another country's flag was being flown in our city. I'm angry when I see our businesses and recreational areas littered with garbage left by people who do not know or understand our laws and culture and are making no attempt to learn about them.

And let me be clear, this is not about race. This is about people being given the privilege of coming here from another country and having no respect for our people, our land, or our life's work. People living their life here the way they did in Haiti.

Angry, stealing, polluting, living in filth, and acting like animals. These are not civilized people. Opening containers in our grocery stores, helping themselves to what's inside, and throwing the rest onto the shelves and floors.

Pulling off of the highway to publicly clean and gut the roadkill. Lying there in front of anyone that passes.

Stealing animals from farmers and leaving their severed heads ... where children play.

Relieving themselves in public.

Making some barbaric stew out of the birds that live in our park.

This is insanity, and it has to stop. What will become of Springfield? Where will we be in five years? The thought terrifies me. Will it be some sort of dystopian wasteland — with most of our original residents having moved away and those that cannot afford to move being locked inside their homes living in fear?

This thought is keeping me awake at night. I just want the old Springfield back. I know it was far from perfect, but at least it was still ours.

Nolle: 'I don't understand what you expect from us as citizens'

I'm done with what I'm seeing. It is so unsafe in my neighborhood anymore. I have the homeless that were trying to camp out, and I have made concessions with them, and I try to help them the best I can to keep them from trying to squat on my property.

But it is so unsafe. I have men that cannot speak English in my front yard screaming at me, throwing mattresses in my front yard, throwing trash in my front yard. And I can't. ... Look at me. I weigh 95 pounds. I couldn't defend myself if I had to.

My husband is elderly, and last night, after living in this home for 45 years, he said, "Noelle, guess what? It's time to pack up and move." He said, "We can't do this anymore." He said, "It's killing both of us mentally."

I don't understand what you expect of us as citizens. I mean, I understand that ... they're here under temporary protected status, and you're protecting them, and I understand that our city services are overwhelmed and understaffed.

But who's protecting us if we're protecting them? Who's protecting me? I want out of this town. I am sorry. Please give me a reason to stay.

Al: 'They have a kindergarten to second-grade education'

I really wish we could deal with this as a community ... with the council instead of going through NAACP or all this other rigamarole. Because we are a community.

I work IT for a living; I'm also a videographer — I do video editing.

I have these Haitians along with Somalis, Mexicans ... I have them all.

Haitians, they need extra attention.

In all honesty ... they have a kindergarten to second-grade education. The state teaches people on our public courses at a fifth- to sixth-grade education level.

if you can do something visually, they can see something visually — no words, no nothing else — they can learn, and they will learn.

But we actually have to step down that low and slowly bring them up to our level and that takes a while.

Lisa: 'I would like to see them have some common respect'

My name is Lisa, and I am a resident of Springfield, Ohio, and I'm also a registered voter. I'm a mother, I'm a grandmother, and I'm a great-grandmother.

I would like to know how many of you sitting up there tonight go into the grocery stores here in the city, Walmart, here in the city to do your shopping?

[I'm] 64 years old, and I don't know what kind of label you can put on this, but I'm taking my cart down the grocery aisle, and I have three immigrants [blocking] the aisle. Seeing me coming, would not budge. I said, "Excuse me," maybe they didn't understand what I was saying, but I'm sure they understood that I was trying to get through that aisle.

So I have no recourse now but to bust through it. I'm not afraid to do so. You know, I would like to see them have some common respect, some common decency. Do not try to bully your way through Springfield, Ohio.

Diana: 'Color has nothing to do with it'

Argentina, Sweden, Venezuela, France, Haiti.

What do these words have in common? These are countries. They are defined by their culture and their language, not their color. When folks stand up here and describe what is happening to them, they are often painted with a broad brush of racism.

That has nothing to do with it. Color has nothing to do with what we're facing. It's culture.

There's not a roundtable for us. There's a roundtable for the Immigration Accountability Task Force, which I've come to find out has nothing to do with us getting any better but making it easy for you to be an immigrant.

That roundtable should have started in November, when this was brought to your attention. The core group that has been coming up here ... Tuesday after Tuesday, have great ideas, and it won't cost the state a dime, and it won't cost us a dime.

But we have not a better approach. But I'm being asked to go to a little roundtable held by the NAACP. I listed the other one. I didn't like it. I don't think any solution is going to come out of that.

We could have started in October, and we'd be well ahead. Shame on you.

Anthony: 'Who is getting paid?'

All right, I'm 28 years old, and I'm a social media influencer, and I just be on TikTok and stuff.

I do YouTube. I think it's kind of odd that a guy like me has to come out from doing what I do on a daily basis to have fun, because I see what's going on in these streets, and I see you guys just sitting up there in those comfy chairs in suits.

And I'm getting out here every day, and I'm broadcasting this, and you guys are just sitting up there in suits. I really challenged you guys to get out here and do something.

These Haitians are running into trash cans. They're running into buildings. They're flipping cars in the middle of the street. I don't know how, like, y'all can be comfortable with this.

Like, I don't know, like, who's getting paid from it.

I honestly feel like someone's getting paid from it in the background. You got a bunch of people on a bus getting dropped off at a gas station to come down here.

I know a single mom that FaceTimed me tonight, FaceTimed me this morning at the welfare office.

And it's nothing but immigrants over there. And I don't even want to seem like I'm coming down on the immigrants because it's the people that's bringing them down here because wherever they're at, that's what they're used to, bro.

They're in the park, grabbing up ducks by their neck and cutting their head off and walking off with them and eating them.

Y'all get the highway state patrol down here every week ... and they look for guns, and they look for dope and this and that and so forth. That same people that y'all got riding up and down Limestone [St.] doing U-turns, pulling people over for blinkers and pulling people over for, like, going left the center in like a couple miles over. ... They can go over and teach these Haitians how to drive.

I'm getting thousands of views on these, and it's gonna get bigger, and it's only going to get worse and y'all sitting up there in these chairs. Y'all need to get out here and do something. Y'all making hundreds of thousand [of] dollars just to wear a suit and sit in a chair.

You need to put on a T-shirt and some Crocs and then y'all need to come out here in these streets.

I'm out here before the police. Somebody told me they walking from the school and a Haitian almost ran into him.

Who is getting paid to bring them over here? I know it's deeper than them.

I know that's where they come from and that's what they do. That's they country, I don't know what they got going on over there, but they can't do that over here.

Y'all gotta really, like, step up. It's lame, bro. Like for real.