Springfield City Hall evacuated over bomb threat as Ohio city in immigration storm

City Hall in Springfield, Ohio, was evacuated after receiving a bomb threat Thursday morning.

This comes as the city finds itself in the national spotlight amid a surge in Haitian immigrants and complaints from longtime residents who say the newcomers have become a nuisance.

Police said the threat was emailed to several agencies and media outlets.

Fulton Elementary School was also evacuated, the Springfield Police Department said.

City Manager Bryan Heck and Deputy Director of Public Safety and Operations Jason Via were seen outside the building around 9 a.m. local time, the department reported. Springfield-Sun News.

Authorities said in a statement: “As a precautionary measure, the building has been evacuated and authorities are currently conducting a thorough investigation.

“Our primary concern is the safety and well-being of our employees and residents. We are working to address this situation as quickly as possible.”

Police have asked the community to avoid the area around City Hall while they investigate.

The working-class city of about 60,000 inhabitants has been in crisis due to the nearly 15,000 immigrants who have arrived in recent years.

Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which some 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities.

Former President Donald Trump mentioned the community during Tuesday’s presidential debate, citing unfounded claims that immigrants have been eating people’s pets.

His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has also promoted the unconfirmed claims.

Springfield officials have tried to quell the misinformation by saying there have been no credible or detailed reports of pets being kidnapped or eaten. State leaders are trying to help address some of the real challenges facing the city.

At the city’s Haitian Community Outreach and Support Center on Wednesday, Rose-Thamar Joseph said many of the roughly 15,000 immigrants who have arrived in recent years have been drawn by the city’s good jobs and relative affordability. But a growing sense of unease has emerged as longtime residents grow increasingly angry at newcomers who take factory jobs, driving up housing costs, worsening traffic and straining city services.

Many Haitians have come to the United States fleeing poverty and violence. They have embraced President Joe Biden’s expanded new legal avenues for entry and avoided illegal crossings, accounting for just 92 border arrests out of more than 56,000 in July, the latest data available.

The Biden administration recently announced that roughly 300,000 Haitians in the United States would be able to remain in the country until at least February 2026, eligible for work authorization, under a law called Temporary Protected Status. The goal is to prevent people from being deported to countries in crisis.

Springfield, about 45 miles from the state capital, Columbus, suffered a sharp decline in its manufacturing sector toward the end of the last century, and its population shrank as a result.

But its center has been revitalized in recent years as more Haitians arrived and helped meet the growing demand for labor as the economy emerged from the pandemic. Officials say Haitians now make up about 15 percent of the population.

The city was shaken last year when a minivan crashed into a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy. The driver was a Haitian man who had recently settled in the area and was driving without a valid license. During a city commission meeting on Tuesday, the boy’s parents condemned politicians’ use of their son’s death to stoke hatred.