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Springfield, Ohio is very much in the news these days, especially after former president Donald Trump referenced this small city during the presidential debate on Tuesday night.

And the reason is the large influx of Haitian migrants — the numbers range from 12,000 to around 20,000. It's a significant number, because Springfield's population is around 50,000. So, needless to say, it's a huge influx of migrants from a different language. 

We've come here to investigate if some of the rumours about the city are true, including claims that pets and wildlife are being kidnapped and either eaten or sacrificed in voodoo rituals.

And so, our attention turned to a Dole factory in the city after we were tipped off by a local source said many Haitian migrants were employed at factories like it. There, we were told by security we had to leave immediately. We were also told that Dole's corporate department would have no comment on the situation either. 

We tried to speak to a few people who seemed to be Haitian coming out of the factory, but they were either unable or unwilling to speak English. We did, however, speak to Sean, a supervisor at the Dole factory, who shared his thoughts on the situation.

“You can go down any street on South Fountain and see it's not the Haitians asking for money,” he said. “It's Americans, and Americans have, since I think COVID hit, become lazy and they don't want to go to work.”

When it comes to Haitians working at the Dole plant, he said “a few” work there. He declined to elaborate if that meant a few hundred or a few thousand or any less broad number. Those working at the plant, Sean said, were “fully capable of doing every job that any American does in (the factory).”

On the rumours of pets being eaten, he thinks someone would “have to be an absolute dumbass to think that another human being is going to eat a dog or a cat.” Many of the allegations circulating online are “false” and that people in the city are being misled by incidents being shared from other areas.

Eventually, security came and shuffled us out of the area altogether. So, with a warning for trespassing and a threat to have the police called on us, we left. But it makes us wonder: why is there such uber sensitivity about Haitians being employed here?