AP Explains: Migration is more complex than politics show

For decades politicians in both parties have bemoaned a U.S. immigration system that virtually all call broken. Attempts at comprehensive reform have failed and popular emotion and partisan rancor have it a new high over the last two years as cities and towns struggled to accommodate migrants.

With emotions high, Republican-led states have bussed new arrivals to Democratic-led cities. The presidential election now has shifted the spotlight to a city whose latest residents are legally in the country.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance have jumped on disproven rumors that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating household pets.

The bottom line: Immigrants are coming and staying in this country through a mix of methods and programs that are not easily captured or acknowledged in political rhetoric, but fearmongering over immigration is nearly as old as the country itself.

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Many ways to come to the United States

The roughly 15,000 Haitians residing in Springfield are in the U.S. legally. Most of them are under Temporary Protected Status, which allows them to stay and work. Trump and Vance have failed to make that distinction, which many critics see as part of Trump’s long history of targeting Black people. Last weekend at a rally in Las Vegas, the Republican presidential nominee said the city has “been taken over by illegal migrants.”

Trump would not be able to legally deport Haitians who have protected status.

His supporters such as Vivek Ramaswamy have falsely stated that the federal government transported Haitians to Springfield’s front doorstep. In reality, migrants with legal status or granted asylum have to foot the bill for their own transportation. The Haitian population there grew largely as migrants who went where they could find family, housing and work.

The benefits of immigration

Historically, immigrants or people with temporary protected status come to the U.S. to work and often take jobs that Americans reject, filling a need in the workforce as older generations retire and fewer babies are born. And many American cities’ cultural, economic and religious identities were shaped by migrants.

“Most Americans are fundamentally immigrants, and so it’s always just kind of crazy when this gets called into question, and there’s some idea that immigration is not a strength,” said Republican Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt.

One in five Oklahoma City residents are Latino, Holt said, and the restaurants and small businesses they operate have become an integral part of the city of about 700,000 people. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, thousands of Vietnamese immigrants flocked to the city and today their community a few miles west of the state capitol is known for its bustling markets and many restaurants.

“Their culture and their food are now very much a part of what makes Oklahoma City unique,” Holt said.

After the evacuation of Afghanistan in 2021, Holt welcomed more than 2,000 Afghan refugees to the city. One of them, Feroz Bashari, swore Holt in for his second term as mayor.

Bashari had been the spokesperson for the Afghan government before the U.S. withdrew. He fled with his family when the government was toppled.

“A friend of mine who came before me told me it’s a nice place for living, raising your children,” Bashari said. “It’s a conservative place, they believe in God, they’re very religious. They have almost the same religious culture we have.”

Immigrants can revitalize little populated neighborhoods and decaying streets by setting up businesses and paying taxes. Miami’s Little Havana, San Francisco’s Chinatown or Chicago’s Polish Triangle are fixtures touted to visitors. But migrants also change the fabric and the culture of a city, as well as the country, in ways that longer-term residents find hard.

The complications of immigration

A census survey conducted between July 2022 and July 2023 found that Ohio’s foreign-born population included 5,442 people from Haiti. In comparison, Florida and New York had populations of over 370,000 and 119,000 Haitian-born residents, respectively.

Springfield officials have placed the figure today at between 15,000 and 20,000, and they say the size of the influx combined with the language barrier has created delays in receiving health care, accessing social services and using everyday government services, like getting a license. Traffic accidents involving death or injury also have increased in town, as have pressures on the housing stock.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has deep ties to Haiti, having traveled there with his wife more than 20 times in support of a tuition-free school named after their late daughter. DeWine, who was born in Springfield and is a lifelong resident of the area, said Haitians who have landed in the city are hard workers, and have helped close labor shortages in factories and warehouses.

But he said that a sudden influx of Haitians in a city of 58,000 has also stretched the city’s resources. Some of those frustrations spilled out at a Springfield City Commission meeting last week.

A school-bus driver said he and other bus drivers are forced to take evasive maneuvers every day “avoiding people who can’t drive.” A man spoke of a friend who was kicked out of his home by a landlord who then tripled the rent. Other residents complained about overcrowded schools and an increase in homelessness among longtime residents.

“I feel like there should be a no-vacancy sign right now,” one man said.

DeWine, at a news conference this week, said that, “Yes, we have challenges.”

“But we’re going to meet those challenges,” he said. “We may not meet them overnight, but we’re going to work at those challenges and those problems.”

Earlier this month, DeWine announced the city would get $2.5 million over the next two years for health-care demands.

Long history of fears over immigration

Trump has alleged that migrants have caused skyrocketing crime rates in cities like Springfield and Aurora, Colorado, although authorities in both cities have debunked that. Many studies show that crime is lower among immigrants compared to native-born residents.

Nearly 200 years before Trump and Vance perpetuated unfounded fears that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio abduct and eat dogs and cats, Chinese laborers in California faced similar demonization. Many Chinese men emigrated from the West in the 1850s — first to dig for gold and then build the transcontinental railroad. Propaganda at the time fostered fears that the Chinese were a “yellow peril” who smoked opium and ate strange foods. This sentiment led to Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was the first law restricting immigration based on ethnicity.

In 1924, the U.S. established a comprehensive immigration law with a quota system based on nation of origin. It heavily favored immigrants from northern and western Europe. The intention was to limit immigrants from Asia as well as Jews and others fleeing Europe.

A monumental change came in 1965 with the Hart-Celler Immigration Act, which abolished the quotas and was intended to help immigrants bring family members with them to the U.S., a practice known as chain migration that first benefited Europeans and now aids prople from Asia and Latin America.

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This story has been updated to remove an incorrect reference to the Ramaswamy town hall being sponsored by the Trump campaign.

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Graham Lee Brewer, of Oklahoma City, and Terry Tang, of Phoenix, are members of AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Associated Press writers Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida, and Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania contributed to this report.