Hopefully the Haitians don't steal all the meth sales jobs.
Inside the Ohio Town Invaded by "Cat-Eating" Haitians
- Thread starter Colonoscopy
- Start date
Did you really expect them to say “yes we eat pets”? Or say “we are just here for the welfare”?
WDT was the first poster that came to mind when I read this post.
But why would they eat pets to begin with? They can go to the grocery store.
And why would Springfield Ohio be the destination of choice for welfare?
It's probably jobs + family and community. (a bunch of other Hattians live there, so it becomes an attractive place to move)
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They're there because they were asked to come and work.
The city's residents needed someone to believe in them. Between 1970 and the early 2000s, Springfield's population had declined by over 30,000. The Greater Springfield area had suffered a 27 percent drop in median income. For a city and region devastated by manufacturing jobs offshored to Mexico and Asia, this was exciting news.
But today, employers are actively hiring newly-arrived immigrants from Haiti. All this at a time when 7 million American men between the ages of 25 and 55 are unemployed, and almost three quarters of the U.S.'s employment growth has come from immigrants since 2019.
"I wish I had 30 more [he currently employs 30 Haitian workers," CEO Jamie McGregor of Springfield-based McGregor Metal, explained it this way during his PBS News Hour interview. "Our Haitian associates come to work every day. They don't have a drug problem. They'll stay at their machine; they'll achieve their numbers. They're here to work. And so, in general, that's a stark difference from what we're used to in our community."
Thanks. . . obviously a large influx of residents is going to put strain on things initially. But I'm confident they will adapt.
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Mexican immigrants basically saved West Liberty from turning into a ghost town. There have - and continue - to be conflicts and challenges, but most folks there will tell you it has ultimately been a net positive for the community.
Sounds like the business owner was tired of employing all the white meth-heads.
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Very common that newly arrived immigrants, particularly non English speakers, rely on social services for several years as they get acclimated. We see similar things here in the QC, particularly on the Illinois side of the river. Keep in mind that office shown in the video is not just "welfare" either - like the guy signing up for his Medicaid benefits. There likely are multiple programs being serviced out of that office, considering it is a city only the size of Dubuque.
Probably because they started with nothing.
Not organically, IMO. There needs to be some intentional community outreach. Sadly, my gut says the Hattians will be more apt to engage then people like the guy in the beginning.
That's perhaps what's started it... especially in the rust belt... but simply bringing back jobs won't fix it (at least quickly) either.
Which is what I'd also say say about some of the urban decay in big cities people like to talk about.
Same thing. There ends up being "spiritual" (not religion) rot too, and then it extends to the culture itself.
This isn't easy to fix. (or else we'd see more of it)
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My best friend's wife is the HR director for a large manufacturing facililty in north Davenport that makes storage containers. It has doubled its workforce over the past 10 years, primarily with immigrant labor particularly from West Africa. She said there are challenges - particularly transportation as most have no cars - but on the whole, they are a more reliable workforce than native Iowans who tend to have less work ethic and drive.
Up around where I am from (NW Iowa), Le Mars and Storm Lake took on many immigrant workers at Wells Daily and the regional pork processing facilities. Good work opportunity, low cost of living, nice communities, etc. I obviously don't live there anymore, but as far as Le Mars is concerned, I don't hear much in the way of issues. Even with the number of immigrant workers, the companies still can't find enough people to work and they are paying competitively.
Sadly, this "phenomenon" isn't unique to Springfield. "HEY! THEY'RE STEALING OUR JOBS!" ...oh, okay, here's an application. "I'M NOT DOING THAT KINDA WORK!"
You're making the assumption that these promotions/incentives are permanent.
Nothing suggests that.
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What is also amusing to me is the Trump campaign acting like this is some sort of new and unique phenomenon.
Shit, I was writing about the difficulty in assimilating new immigrant labor here TWENTY YEARS AGO!
From the April 24, 2005 Quad City Times:
by Tory Brecht
By any conventional American measure, Eddie Lusenie is not a rich man.
He works long hours hand-grinding metal plates at a Bettendorf steel factory and returns home to the upstairs flat of a small house in Moline where nearly every household item once belonged to someone else.
His wife, Charity, back from a day scrubbing dishes in the kitchen of the Belgian Village, greets him most nights wearily.
Lusenie may perfectly fit the description of "working poor" but he knows better than most how relative a term poor is.
"Real wealth, to me, is to live in good health, no trouble, no disturbances in my life," he said. "When you have peace in your life, that is wealth. I can have money, but not have peace, and that is not wealth. I don't just want to accumulate things to myself, I want to help people."
One learns a little perspective when suddenly in an unfamiliar city in a country only seen on TV, with nothing but two suitcases, a wife and the contact name of a case worker assigned to help build a new life from scratch.
That's where Lusenie was last October, a long six years after fleeing his native Sierra Leone. Several of the years were spent in an excruciating state of inactivity in a refugee camp in neighboring Ghana.
"Living in the camp was very frustrating," he said. "My goal was to come out and better my life. It wasn't until my day of departure that I knew I was coming to Illinois."
His story sounds extreme, but it's quite typical of the nearly 200 refugees- most from Africa recently - whom the always inventive handful of case workers at World Relief help resettle in the Illinois Quad-Cities each year.
"They come here with nothing but a desire for a better life and a safe life," says Vicki Gehrke, World Relief's employment manager, who has the task of finding jobs for newly arrived refugees, most with only a high school or less education and little English. "They don't have any job leads, they don't have any place to live. But a lot of them ask right away, the first day, When can I go to work?' "
They find jobs packaging, grinding metal, cutting tubes, assembling work boots, making mattresses. Some clean hotel rooms, some clean dishes. And many do it with a dedication and enthusiasm unmatched by American peers.
"I've had refugees start with five other people in their group who aren't refugees, and by the time they come to orientation, one person hasn't filed their documents, another comes one hour late and one leaves early," Gehrke said. "Out of five people, three Americans have buzzed out and two weeks later, the fourth quits, and my person is still there because they want to work."
Day by day, hard hour by hard hour, Deng Malual and wife Rosa from Sudan have seen that work pay off in the four years they've been in Moline.
They still live in a cramped apartment in the Springbrook Court public housing project, where 4-month-old baby Ayen's squalls bleed through the walls. But the furniture inside is now theirs -- not the hand-me-downs provided by World Relief -- and Malual has a nice color television and stereo.
"I came from a bad place," he says of war-torn, ethnically and religiously divided Sudan. "All we had was some clothes, no money, nothing. It's like being born, starting from the beginning. I just wanted to start a new life."
He does piecework and machinery operation at Norcross Safety Products in Rock Island. He started out making around $9 an hour and now makes a bit more. Rosa cleaned rooms at the Sheraton Four Points until shortly before the baby came.
The couple -- whose primary language is Arabic -- know they must master English to move up the rungs of the working world. Both have regularly attended English as a Second Language classes at Black Hawk College, though Rosa is on break now to care for Ayen.
The classes make for grueling days, Malual said. The classes meet four times a week from 6 to 8:30 p.m. His workday at Norcross generally runs from 5 a.m. to around 3 p.m.
"If you want something here and you work hard, you can get it," Malual said. "But in Sudan, if you need something and you work hard, you can't get it. They're just going to say 'No, you can't get it.' I plan on living in the United States. This is my home now."
Though Lusenie plans to return to his native Sierra Leone, his views are similar to Malual's.
"You have to work to make ends meet," he said. "Although it's difficult, you have to work to pay the bills and do other things. The wealth I see here, the difference between the poor and the rich, is not that much. The average man here can afford a car. In Africa, if you have a car, you are rich. One of my goals is to go to college. If I go back to my country later, I want to be able to help."
Ann Grove, executive director of World Relief, appreciates Lusenie's heart and drive. However, she sees a bit different picture when it comes to distribution of wealth in America than he does.
"It seems to me that the gap between the haves and have-nots in America is growing more extreme," she said. "Unless the people who have are intentional about learning what it's like to live on the other side, it's not going to change. If people understand that refugees have already had to do incredible things just to get here or to keep their children alive, it's hard not to respect them."
Gehrke, who not only helps find jobs, but coaches, trains and encourages the fragile new arrivals, is often stunned at their resiliency. Their gratitude for basics and appreciation for just a sliver of opportunity touch her.
"What is the American dream?" she said. "For our families, it's safety. One man, we asked him how he likes his apartment. He said, 'It's great. I haven't heard any gunshots.' For them, it's being safe, being able to eat and being able to go to work each day."
Shit, I was writing about the difficulty in assimilating new immigrant labor here TWENTY YEARS AGO!
From the April 24, 2005 Quad City Times:
by Tory Brecht
By any conventional American measure, Eddie Lusenie is not a rich man.
He works long hours hand-grinding metal plates at a Bettendorf steel factory and returns home to the upstairs flat of a small house in Moline where nearly every household item once belonged to someone else.
His wife, Charity, back from a day scrubbing dishes in the kitchen of the Belgian Village, greets him most nights wearily.
Lusenie may perfectly fit the description of "working poor" but he knows better than most how relative a term poor is.
"Real wealth, to me, is to live in good health, no trouble, no disturbances in my life," he said. "When you have peace in your life, that is wealth. I can have money, but not have peace, and that is not wealth. I don't just want to accumulate things to myself, I want to help people."
One learns a little perspective when suddenly in an unfamiliar city in a country only seen on TV, with nothing but two suitcases, a wife and the contact name of a case worker assigned to help build a new life from scratch.
That's where Lusenie was last October, a long six years after fleeing his native Sierra Leone. Several of the years were spent in an excruciating state of inactivity in a refugee camp in neighboring Ghana.
"Living in the camp was very frustrating," he said. "My goal was to come out and better my life. It wasn't until my day of departure that I knew I was coming to Illinois."
His story sounds extreme, but it's quite typical of the nearly 200 refugees- most from Africa recently - whom the always inventive handful of case workers at World Relief help resettle in the Illinois Quad-Cities each year.
"They come here with nothing but a desire for a better life and a safe life," says Vicki Gehrke, World Relief's employment manager, who has the task of finding jobs for newly arrived refugees, most with only a high school or less education and little English. "They don't have any job leads, they don't have any place to live. But a lot of them ask right away, the first day, When can I go to work?' "
They find jobs packaging, grinding metal, cutting tubes, assembling work boots, making mattresses. Some clean hotel rooms, some clean dishes. And many do it with a dedication and enthusiasm unmatched by American peers.
"I've had refugees start with five other people in their group who aren't refugees, and by the time they come to orientation, one person hasn't filed their documents, another comes one hour late and one leaves early," Gehrke said. "Out of five people, three Americans have buzzed out and two weeks later, the fourth quits, and my person is still there because they want to work."
Day by day, hard hour by hard hour, Deng Malual and wife Rosa from Sudan have seen that work pay off in the four years they've been in Moline.
They still live in a cramped apartment in the Springbrook Court public housing project, where 4-month-old baby Ayen's squalls bleed through the walls. But the furniture inside is now theirs -- not the hand-me-downs provided by World Relief -- and Malual has a nice color television and stereo.
"I came from a bad place," he says of war-torn, ethnically and religiously divided Sudan. "All we had was some clothes, no money, nothing. It's like being born, starting from the beginning. I just wanted to start a new life."
He does piecework and machinery operation at Norcross Safety Products in Rock Island. He started out making around $9 an hour and now makes a bit more. Rosa cleaned rooms at the Sheraton Four Points until shortly before the baby came.
The couple -- whose primary language is Arabic -- know they must master English to move up the rungs of the working world. Both have regularly attended English as a Second Language classes at Black Hawk College, though Rosa is on break now to care for Ayen.
The classes make for grueling days, Malual said. The classes meet four times a week from 6 to 8:30 p.m. His workday at Norcross generally runs from 5 a.m. to around 3 p.m.
"If you want something here and you work hard, you can get it," Malual said. "But in Sudan, if you need something and you work hard, you can't get it. They're just going to say 'No, you can't get it.' I plan on living in the United States. This is my home now."
Though Lusenie plans to return to his native Sierra Leone, his views are similar to Malual's.
"You have to work to make ends meet," he said. "Although it's difficult, you have to work to pay the bills and do other things. The wealth I see here, the difference between the poor and the rich, is not that much. The average man here can afford a car. In Africa, if you have a car, you are rich. One of my goals is to go to college. If I go back to my country later, I want to be able to help."
Ann Grove, executive director of World Relief, appreciates Lusenie's heart and drive. However, she sees a bit different picture when it comes to distribution of wealth in America than he does.
"It seems to me that the gap between the haves and have-nots in America is growing more extreme," she said. "Unless the people who have are intentional about learning what it's like to live on the other side, it's not going to change. If people understand that refugees have already had to do incredible things just to get here or to keep their children alive, it's hard not to respect them."
Gehrke, who not only helps find jobs, but coaches, trains and encourages the fragile new arrivals, is often stunned at their resiliency. Their gratitude for basics and appreciation for just a sliver of opportunity touch her.
"What is the American dream?" she said. "For our families, it's safety. One man, we asked him how he likes his apartment. He said, 'It's great. I haven't heard any gunshots.' For them, it's being safe, being able to eat and being able to go to work each day."
And these immigrants are a bargain for what they bring the local economy...
The majority of families who leave the welfare system do so after a relatively short period of time -- about half leave within a year; 70 percent within two years and almost 90 percent within five years.
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I think I've written around 10-12 stories on the issue. I've probably interviewed 20-30 immigrants from all over - Mexico, Central America, Africa, Asia - and nearly to a person, they all said their biggest goal was to work enough to afford their own house and maybe a car. When their kids quickly learn English, it makes them incredibly proud.
That study does not include Haitian immigrants. Do you really believe there were 20k plus available jobs in Springfield Ohio for uneducated, untrained and illiterate workers? Or maybe they were put there for another reason?
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It's obvious most of them are smarter than the white denizens of that town that were interviewed.
Well that changes everything. Voting Trump now.
They're taking the jobs that locals don't want to do for the price the hatians are getting paid. The difference is the government is also subsidizing the hatians with money for food and housing. Essentially the tax payer is financing the companies using hatians as ultra cheap labor while the long time citizens are losing their homes and lives even.
And obviously there's the issue of the Haitians eating geese and goats, or whatever.
Impeccable logic. You're slowly winning me over.
So, you believe the most likely explanation is that they are actually eating people’s pets? At the same time they all have this “magic money card” to buy $5,000 worth of food, they are eating cats and dogs?
Yeah, clearly the local white folk are so much more believable.
I'm sure the folks in this video complaining about the Haitians receiving government benefits are totally not receiving any government benefits themselves.
Scruffy and Rico say... nuts to that! He was lying!! Bonespurs Donnie told me so!
I just asked my closest 3 duck experts. Donald, Daisey, Daffy say it's not a problem.
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