Tangle - The Haitian Immigrant Controversy in Ohio

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

In Wednesday’s presidential debate, former President Donald Trump claimed that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets, framing the alleged acts as symptomatic of the broader migrant crisis in the United States. The comment, which Springfield officials have said is false, set off a discussion about the implications of heightened levels of migration to towns like Springfield and a debate over the veracity of Trump’s claims. You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can watch the entire Tangle Live event at City Winery NYC on our YouTube Channel!Check out Episode 6 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. Please give us a 5-star rating and leave a comment!Today’s clickables: Quick hits (1:50), Today’s story (3:39), Right's take (7:22), Left's take (11:18), Isaac’s take (15:41), Under the Radar (24:46), Numbers (25:46), Have a nice day (27:15)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Take the survey: What do you think about immigration to small towns like Springfield? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether renting, renewing a mortgage, or considering buying a home, everybody has housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances, visit Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg

and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, with the Haitian migrants and the rumors about them eating pets, and how immigration is changing this small Ohio town. Actually, I think this is a pretty important story, despite some of the more, you know, little ridiculous over-the-top narratives that have come out of it.

We're going to break down exactly what's happened. We're going to do some fact-checking on some of the rumors, explain what we know, and then I'll share my take. Before we do that, though, a quick heads up that tomorrow in our Members Only Friday edition of the newsletter, we are going to be talking about what election narratives are actually important. What polls should you be watching? What issues really matter in swing states? This edition is coming out to our 20,000 plus Tangle members who support our work with paid subscriptions. If you want to become a member, you can go to readtangle.com and click membership. You can go to readtangle.com forward slash membership.

You can click the link that is in today's episode description, whatever is easiest for you. But your support, as always, helps make this podcast and all the stuff we put out in the newsletter on the YouTube channel possible. So thank you guys for the support. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to John, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac. and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, House Speaker Mike Johnson scrapped a planned vote to avoid a government shutdown after opposition from fellow Republican lawmakers.

Number two, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump, and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, all attended a 9-11 memorial in New York on Wednesday. Number three, 67.1 million Americans watched the Harris-Trump debate. In June, roughly 51.3 million people tuned in. Number four, Hurricane Francine made landfall in Louisiana yesterday as a Category 2 hurricane. It weakened to a tropical depression,

and a state of emergency remains in effect in Mississippi. And number five, a bipartisan group of 42 state attorneys general demanded that Congress require Surgeon General warning labels on social media apps for children and young adults. Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War III, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come

into our country and look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk. It's not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame. In Wednesday's presidential debate, former President Donald Trump claimed that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents' pets, framing the alleged acts as symptomatic of the broader migrant crisis in the United States. The comment, which Springfield officials have said is false, set off a discussion about the

implications of heightened levels of migration to towns like Springfield and a debate over the veracity of Trump's claims. Here's a little background. In 1960, Springfield was a city of about 80,000 people. Its population dropped to 59,000 by 2022, and Springfield officials estimate that approximately 20,000 Haitian immigrants have arrived in the city since the pandemic. Many Haitians are in the country legally, with social security numbers and work permits. The U.S. government provides cash assistance, medical assistance, employment preparation, job placement, English language training, and other services to Haitian migrants, as well as other nationalities, for up to 12 months through the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The rapid increase in Haitian migrants to Springfield has strained some of the city's resources, particularly the health care, education, and housing systems. Local officials say elementary schools reported a surge in new enrollments, prompting the district to hire roughly two dozen teachers certified to teach English as a second language and several Haitian Creole interpreters. Additionally, the city is experiencing a housing affordability crisis. Springfield's housing authority director suggested that longtime residents have been priced out of homes by landlords who have discovered that Haitian migrants are willing to live together in large groups and pay high rents. These access and affordability issues have caused tension between

longtime Springfield residents and the migrant community. That tension was exacerbated in August 2023 when a Haitian migrant driving a minivan without a U.S. license crashed into a school bus carrying 52 elementary school students, killing one of the children. In the year since the crash, locals have increasingly spoken out against the immigrant community, and Ohio lawmakers like Republican Senator J.D. Vance have amplified these complaints. However, many of Springfield's residents view the addition of Haitian immigrants as a boon for the community. In the past, the city has attracted several major businesses, boosting the economy by creating a labor shortage as Springfield's population declined.

Haitian immigrants have filled many of those open positions, and local business owners say they've been strong employees. At a Springfield City Commission meeting in August, a resident claimed that he had seen Haitians beheading ducks at local parks and taking them home to eat. No evidence has emerged to support this specific claim, though similar claims have been echoed on Facebook, and The Federalist published audio of a 911 call from a Springfield resident reporting a group of people, suggested to be immigrants, carrying four geese to their car. Then a video went viral on social media showing a woman being arrested for purportedly killing and eating a cat.

The suspect turned out to be an American woman, and the incident did not take place in Springfield. Another purported photograph of a Springfield migrant carrying a dead goose was found to have been taken in Columbus, Ohio. City officials have emphatically denied these rumors. Still, prominent Republicans and influencers, including Trump, Vance, and ex-CEO Elon Musk, have repeated these claims in recent days. Today, we'll explore the controversy over Trump's comments at the debate and the tensions over migration in Springfield, with views from the right and the left, and then Isaac's take.

We'll be right back after this quick break. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins

who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. All right, first up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right sympathizes with Springfield residents who object to the sudden increase in migration to their city. Some argue this story is a reflection of Biden's failed immigration policy. Others say the concerns of Springfield residents are being ignored.

In PJ Media, Lincoln Brown asked, how much diversity is too much? Amid the stories of ducks, geese, and house cats allegedly becoming carryout dinners in Springfield and animal sacrifices in New York, there are also issues of the impact of so many people on housing, services, and infrastructure, and for that matter, the danger to residents. One Springfield woman is dealing with immigrants threatening her, throwing garbage in her lawn, and trying to squat on her property, Brown said. I went to Haiti on a mission trip years ago. Given what I saw there, it's no surprise that Haitian illegal immigrants

would feel entitled to throw garbage and squat in this woman's front yard. Haiti is a failed state, and crime and chaos reign. If we're expected to turn a blind eye to these situations in the name of diversity, at what point do we say that allowing such latitude threatens the general welfare?

At what point does this idea of that's how we do it in this country, cross a line, Brown wrote? It is worth noting that while Biden and the left made sure we all knew about the dangers of white supremacy, they were attempting to divert attention from the influx of illegal immigrants to places like New York, Chicago, and yes, Springfield. And now, many people are seeing the results of the administration's policy and misdirection. In the Washington Examiner, Zachary Faria wrote, Forget the ducks. Biden's border crisis is overwhelming communities. Put aside the fantastical claims that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating cats and ducks in Ohio, and you can see that there is a real undeniable problem.

Communities are being overrun by the border crisis, Faria said. Former President Donald Trump repeated the claim that Haitian immigrants were killing and eating animals in Springfield, Ohio during the debate on Tuesday because Trump can never make a good point when there is a good point to be made. Putting that aside, there is a real problem involving the surge of Haitian immigrants in Springfield. Springfield City Schools had to hire translators for Haitian children who don't speak English, leading to 10 times more spending on translation services alone. In 2023, a Haitian immigrant crashed into a school bus, killing one child and sending 26 more to the hospital on the first day of school, Faria wrote. This mirrors the problems in many places throughout the country,

whether it be Ohio, New York City, Chicago, or other small border towns in Texas and Arizona. Biden and the Democratic Party refused to deport illegal immigrants or even keep them out of the country in the first place, leaving communities like Springfield to fend for themselves. In hot air, David Strom criticized the media's reporting on the issue. The entire effort of the media is to debunk the viral stories rather than investigate them. Perhaps they are true, perhaps not. Surely something is happening there. After all, no town could increase its population by a third with uneducated people from one of the most dysfunctional societies in the world without there being some problem, Strom said. Certainly citizens are saying there are, and

nobody seems to be interested in asking them what they think. I care about cats and dogs, but immigrants eating them or not isn't the story. It is the sense of helplessness and alienation that so many people in Springfield are feeling. J.D. Vance had it right. People in Springfield deserve better. And part of that should be the media going and talking to them instead of deriding them as lying boobs. I guarantee you that not one of these media mavens would tolerate anything similar happening in their neighborhoods, and that the local government would move heaven and earth

to ensure that it didn't, Strom wrote. Let me say again, the story is not cats. It's people. People having their lives turned upside down, and the media has to put a target on their backs because they're fine with it. All right, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left announces the claims about Haitian migrants pushed by Trump and others as racist. Some say that politicians are propping up outlandish

stories to distract from their policy failures in places like Springfield. Others argue Haitian migrants are a net positive for Springfield. In the Atlantic, Adam Serwer criticized the gullible Mr. Trump. Perhaps the most telling moment of last night's debate was when former President Donald Trump, desperate for a compelling attack line against Vice President Kamala Harris, repeated the right-wing canard that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are stealing and eating people's pets, Serber said. This was a tremendously revealing response about how Trump's brain works, and by extension the minds of his Fox News captured supporters, who will simply believe anything they are told. This falsehood directed at a community that has done nothing wrong

besides being from a different place than the surrounding residents shows how much the Trump campaign's strategy hinges on polluting the information environment with lies about vulnerable groups that Republicans want to blame for the country's problems. But for all their dishonest catastrophizing about immigrants, Republicans offer no solutions, only boundless cruelty towards scapegoats, Serwer said. These smears of Haitian immigrants are dishonorable.

They are cowardly. They are dishonest. And in that, they are as straightforward an example of the values of Trump-era conservatism as you could ask for. In the Columbia Dispatch, Amelia Robinson said Vance and other Republicans aren't doing anything to alleviate the real problems facing communities like Springfield. This time, Vance is not downgrading childless cat-loving ladies. He is simply spreading nasty, hateful, and undeniably racist rumors about the 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants who have moved to Springfield, Robinson wrote. The so-called reports, Vanceance mentioned have been traced to a social media post linked to an incident in Canton, an Ohio city two hours and 46 minutes from Springfield.

Could it be that Vance doesn't know the difference between Canton and Springfield and one woman and 20,000 women, men, and children? Or maybe, just maybe, he's doing all the hate-mongering he can before the November election. Saying Springfield is struggling due to a housing shortage would clearly not be as sexy or divisive as implying the city is being overrun by cat-murdering Haitians. Telling the truth would only draw attention to the fact that neither J.D. Vance nor Jim Jordan are doing anything to alleviate real problems

facing communities like Springfield, Robinson said. Instead, they use their big, smart brains to create racist and nationalist tweets to appeal to the worst of human nature. Their rhetoric does not change the truth. The Haitians aren't eating cats in Springfield. They add to the community. In no opinion, Noah Smith wrote, yes, Haitians are good enough to be Americans. Springfield's story is typical, a small post-industrial Midwestern city that all the young people are moving away from,

whose businesses have tried recruiting immigrants to make up for the lack of local workers, Smith said. As is common throughout American history, the workers ended up being mostly from one country, thanks to word-of-mouth reports from the first people who went there. Although plenty of rightists called the Haitians illegals, most of them were brought to Springfield legally.

Obviously, when 15,000 Haitians show up in a Midwestern town of 60,000 people, there's gonna be some tensions. But like most Midwestern towns, Springfield is handling the influx well. Haiti itself is a desperately poor and horrifically violent country. Rightists would have us believe

that this poverty and violence is due to characteristics, cultural and or innate, of the Haitian people themselves. And yet, when we look at how Haitians actually do in the U.S., that story seems to fall apart. For example, although Haitian immigrants tend to be less educated than Americans,

their children tend to be more educated than the general population, Smith wrote. Haitian success in America, like all immigrant success, is due in part to the selectivity of America's immigration system. If you have the money, the brains, the discipline, the personal initiative, and or the risk tolerance to get out of Haiti, you're probably unusually likely to do well no matter where you go.

All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. When I was a kid, there was a janitor at my elementary school. We used to call him Sideburns Chuck. He was this heavyset guy with a big mustache, pale skin, angry looking eyes, and yes, massive bushy sideburns. He always smelled like cigarette smoke and always seemed pissed off. And he yelled at the kids a lot as if he were the principal. And so all the kids hated him. We used to hypothesize about him. Did he live in his car? Did he kill the groundhogs on our school campus and eat them? Did he kidnap kids and lock them in the school shed? By the time I was in middle and high school, it was hard to remember what was real and what was rumor. Sometimes it was

hard to remember what I had made up and what I had been told by a quote-unquote reliable source. I thought about him this week when reading about Springfield. I thought about the way rumors spread in small towns and how they become real and how much faster they spread in the internet era. I thought about how they often germinate from a very real feeling about a very real happening, even if it might all sound ridiculous when you say it out loud. So, believe it or not, I actually want to examine the Haitians eating pets narrative for a moment because as ridiculous as it might sound to some people or as scary and believable as it might sound to others, it's actually a good example of how nonsense can spread on the internet. You probably want to get right to it. Are Haitians eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio?

I can't definitively say no, but I can strongly suggest that you should not put your name on a claim like that. From digging in on this story, and yes, unfortunately I did, it seems like it all stemmed from a Facebook post someone made claiming to have seen a Haitian migrant pulled over while in a van filled with cats and confessed to police that he was eating them. confessed to police that he was eating them. One YouTuber even found a local Springfield person who claims to have witnessed this, though his story does not sound very believable to me. Then another person claimed on Facebook to have heard secondhand that a Haitian neighbor had caught, skinned, and hung someone's pet cat

from a tree in front of their yard for days. Conspicuously absent were any photos or police reports. These stories sparked an ember, which then spread like wildfire. People started sharing a photo of a man in Columbus, Ohio, not Springfield, carrying a dead goose as proof the stories were real. The photographer has since said the man was also not Haitian. Then there was the video of an American woman who is black, who is clearly in the midst of a mental health episode in a different city in Ohio, being accused by police of killing and eating a cat. Not Haitian, not in Springfield, not even sure she actually ate a cat. When the gossip rag TMZ tracks this

stuff down and runs headlines like, quote, Trump's tail unravels like a ball of string, end quote, maybe it's time to back off. The aforementioned YouTuber who spoke to locals, funnily enough, also asked Springfield Haitians about the rumors. Their responses, unanimously, were confusion, laughter, and shock. That's what you would expect from normal people wondering why the hell some kid with a camera and a microphone is asking them about eating people's pets. Christopher Ruffo, the conservative activist who regularly outs progressives for promoting far-left ideology in schools and workplaces,

is offering a $5,000 bounty to anyone who can prove the cat story. So far, he's spent most of his time warning his followers not to kill and eat a cat to win $5,000. It's all rather silly. Sidebar, in the midst of all of this, Rufo also confirmed that he once tried to track down another cat rumor that gender-confused kids were asking to use a litter box in class because they quote-unquote identified as a cat. He never found any such story and

confirmed it was all made-up urban legend, despite it spreading online, much like this story has. Now, is it possible some of these migrants are hunting local geese and ducks and cooking them up for dinner? That sounds a lot more plausible, and there is actually more evidence of it, i.e. multiple firsthand accounts and even a police report. Do I find hunting local ducks somehow offensive?

A little, I guess, yet I bet many residents of Springfield spend their weekends hunting wild game, and a well-cooked duck is, well, quite good after all. Even if this is a real problem, I presume it wouldn't be hard to teach the new Haitian population about local hunting laws. And that's, again, assuming all the stories are true, but the complete dearth of photo evidence suggests otherwise. The unfortunate thing about these distracting headlines is that they miss what is otherwise a very interesting, important, and compelling story about both the pros and cons of immigration

and how mass immigration can impact small American towns. The speed at which Springfield has changed is unique, but Springfield as a town is not. I give my share of criticism to the New York Times, so let me give a nod to Miriam Jordan, who wrote an excellent balanced dispatch about what has been happening on the ground. To some, Haitian migrants, who, to repeat,

are there legally, are an unambiguous positive. They are being hailed by business owners as good workers who show up on time, mind their own business, don't do drugs, and work hard. Teachers say their children are enriching the learning environment and adding an interesting layer of diversity to the schools. Local church leaders say the pews are full again. Many Haitians are devout Catholics, after all. For landlords, they are tenants who will pay their rent

on time and even pay more than they could get previously because some are willing to live in groups inside a single-family home. To these people, Haitian immigrants are revitalizing the town, bringing back jobs, supporting industry, and making housing more competitive. But many locals have a different perspective. Longtime Springfield residents are struggling, and some say they are being priced out of housing because the Haitian migrants arrive with jobs and government assistance. The Haitians are apparently having a very hard time driving safely in town and have been involved in many accidents,

more than just the one that killed the 11-year-old Aidan Clark, whose dad, by the way, has publicly asked people not to use his son to demonize the migrant community. Healthcare services are harder to get. Schools are being pushed to their limits with enrollment. Budgets for social services are ballooning because of the need to hire Creole speakers and ESL teachers. This story, one where a wave of immigrants can simultaneously help revitalize a certain industry while also pushing government resources and housing to the brink, this is a fascinating story about how immigration in the U.S. works today.

It is big and messy and not unambiguously good or bad. It's the story we should be talking about and solving for. We might discuss, for instance, why Haitian immigrants with jobs are being given a year of food stamps and government assistance through refugee programs when they are gainfully employed with stable housing. We might debate why these services seem more accessible to immigrants than to local U.S. residents. We might discuss how to better train foreign citizens to drive in the U.S. before they put themselves and their neighbors in danger.

We might ask what kind of programs the employers, who clearly want these workers, or local religious groups can provide to lessen the burden on government services that are being overwhelmed. This way, veterans don't have to wait in line for hours to receive their benefits. These are the conversations we should be having, not debates over rumors about pet cats being eaten or geese getting caught in local ponds. It's worth noting that many conservative commentators have acknowledged the cat-eating story was not based in truth and have tried to shift the discourse toward a more productive debate about immigration. But as long as conservative influencers or the Republican

presidential nominee refuse to back off these falsehoods, the important discussion will remain sidetracked. These immigrants are here. So how do we harness the benefits and mitigate the problems? 20,000 people from a desperately poor and violent country came to a small town with a clearly stated desire. They wanted to work. They have a different culture, a different language, and a desire to build a good life among their neighbors. Some will be bad apples, but most will do their best to make a living and get along with their neighbors, even the ones who call them sand monkeys when they commit the crime of waving hello. So what can we do? How can we solve that problem or preempt it in the first place? How can we

embrace a population wanting to work while also not overlooking the population that is already there? The answer will often be to put limits on mass migration, but we need solutions for the complex reality of when the migration has already happened to or when it is needed. I don't have all the answers, but I'd love if we started by asking the right questions. All right, that is it for my take. We are skipping today's listener question because the pod got a little bit long,

but as always, if you have a question, you can write into us, staff, S-T-A-F-F, at retangle.com with your question, and we'll try and get to it in the podcast. All right, back to John for the rest of the pod, and I'll see you guys on Sunday. Peace. We'll be right back after this quick break.

Whether renting, renewing a mortgage, or considering buying a home, everybody has housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances, visit Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins

who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under-the-radar story for today, folks. Over the span of 2023, Americans used just over 100 trillion megabytes of wireless data,

a 36% increase over 2022, and the largest single-year increase in wireless data consumption, according to an industry survey released on Tuesday. And while the usage is soaring, Congress is stalling. In March 2023, Congress let the Federal Communications Commission's authority to auction use of the radio frequency spectrum used for wireless data lapse for the first time in three decades over a debate on what to reserve for use for the Department of Defense. There is no pipeline of spectrum for 5G, said Meredith Atwell Baker, CEO of CTIA, a firm that represents major wireless carriers. The wireless industry needs access to more full-power licensed spectrum. Reuters has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The population of Springfield, Ohio in 2022 was 58,645 according to DataUSA. The percentage of Springfield residents who were U.S. citizens in 2022

was 97.8% down from 98.5% in 2021. The percentage of Springfield's population that was Black or African American, non-Hispanic, was 17.4% in 2022. The percentage of Springfield's population that was Black or African American, non-Hispanic, was 17.4% in 2022. The percentage of Springfield's population that was Black or African American, non-Hispanic, in 2020 was 18.8% according to the U.S. Census. The approximate increase from 43,000 to 436,000 in annual spending on Haitian Creole translation services at a federally subsidized clinic in Springfield between 2020 and 2024 was $393,000, according to the health center's CEO. The year-over-year increase from 2023 to 2024 in medium rent price in Springfield is $275, according to Zillow. The percentage of Americans who want immigration to the U.S. to decrease is 55%,

according to a June 2024 Pew Research survey. The percentage of Americans who wanted immigration to the U.S. to decrease in May of 2020 was 28%. And the percentage of U.S. voters who believe Americans' openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation is 61%. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. In one neighborhood in Victoria, Canada, a series of little free libraries had been vandalized such that they could no longer be used. Roger Barker, a local resident, decided to rectify the situation. He repaired two of the libraries and created a third one-hole cloth,

then decorated the boxes with inspiring quotes and added charming details, such as a toy piano in one of the library's attic. Adam Sawatsky, a reporter in the area, noted that Barker's acts demonstrate that we can decide to make a story that begins with destruction and ends with the creation of something even better.

CTV News has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to readtangle.com and sign up for a membership. Isaac and Ari will be back with the Sunday podcast and I'll be back here on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a fantastic weekend, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by Duke Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Daily Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Bacoba, who is also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from

Tangle, please go check out our website at readtangle.com. That's readtangle.com.