Tensions flared locally after Donald Trump blamed Haitian migrants for “massive crime” in this tiny town

Two days after Donald Trump claimed Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, the former president turned his attention to another part of America.

“A small town of 4,000 people in Charleroi, Pennsylvania – have you heard of it?” Trump asked the crowd at a campaign rally in Arizona.

“Charleroi – a nice name, but now it's not so nice anymore,” he said, blaming a “flood” of Haitian migrants for “bringing massive crime to the city” and making it “virtually bankrupt.” .

In recent weeks, Trump has ramped up rhetoric about “illegal aliens” and “migrant crime” and promoted his promised “mass deportation” program. He says his plan will help “every city that has been invaded and conquered” by migrants who entered the U.S. without authorization.

But Charleroi council chief Joe Manning says Trump's claims about Haitians in his city are untrue.

“Everyone who is here is here legally, as far as we know,” he said. “There has been no increase in crime (and) we are not even close to being bankrupt.”

Regardless, the comments inflamed local tensions and emboldened white supremacists, he said.

Large stickers advertising a white nationalist group appeared on traffic signals downtown, and a flyer purportedly from the Ku Klux Klan that urged “white citizens of Charleroi” to “take up arms” circulated on social media to grab”.

“It started to scare everyone terribly,” Mr. Manning said.

“They were afraid for the Haitians who were here because they weren’t bothering anyone.”

From the “Magic City” to the ghost town

Charleroi was once such a booming city that it was nicknamed the “Magic City.”

But most of the factories and steel mills that powered the local economy have now closed, contributing to the displacement of two-thirds of the population over the course of a century. One of the largest remaining employers, a glass manufacturer, is leaving Charleroi, taking hundreds of jobs with it.

About 700 Haitian migrants have moved to the city in recent years.

They include Evency Dorzelma, a former Haitian police officer who fled gang violence in the country six years ago. When he first arrived in Charleroi, he found a “ghost town with hundreds of empty houses,” he said.

“What we have brought to this city is truly significant,” said Mr. Dorzelma, who now works as a driver. Haitians and other migrants “fill jobs that most Americans would never do” and stimulate the economy.

Some have opened stores in formerly dilapidated buildings downtown. Some work in geriatric care. Many others work at a food packaging plant, where the company president told local television he had difficulty finding American workers.

“I wonder if the former president realizes the value of the support we bring to this community,” Mr. Dorzelma said.

He fears that Trump's rhetoric is dangerous for Haitians and other people of color.

“I know a lot of Black Americans here who are entrepreneurs, so we assume that if this doesn't stop, everyone can get hurt,” he said.

Sign of division

As with most things in America, Charleroi residents are divided on the immigration issue and what Trump has said about it. But in the city's front yards, Trump-Vance signs appear to be much more popular than those for the Harris-Walz ticket.

Most locals who spoke to the ABC did not want to be named in this story. “There’s just too much hate,” one said.

However, they often raised two complaints.

One was that the influx of newcomers had caused problems for local schools, as there were too few translators and teachers to cope. The other reason was that misunderstandings about road rules and dangerous driving had led to frequent car accidents and near misses.

Local officials acknowledge there are challenges but dismiss both complaints.

While the school district has had to hire English teachers to help 225 non-native speakers (up from 12 just five years ago), Superintendent Ed Zelich insists there are no problems.

And Mr. Manning, the city manager, said traffic data shows the number of accidents has declined in recent years.

“They are neither bigger nor more serious because Haitians came here,” he said.

Conservative social media accounts have amplified another theory: “Kamala imported” Haitians to provide cheap labor for the local food packaging factory.

A Republican state senator, Camera Bartolotta, responded online that this was not true and that the facility's owner had been “unfairly vilified.” “He spent a long time advertising and looking for workers,” she wrote

Last week, however, local media reported that an agency that provides staff for the plant was accused by federal investigators of recruiting illegal migrants and paying them in cash.

Food packaging company Fourth Street Foods did not respond to an ABC inquiry, but owner Dave Barbe told a local television station that its contracts with employment agencies stipulate that they only hire immigrants with legal status.

Support for Trump's approach

Opinion polls suggest Trump's strong focus on immigration could be an advantage for him.

Voters consistently rate it as a top election issue, including in Pennsylvania – one of seven crucial swing states likely to decide the election.

In a Washington Post poll last month, for example, 48 percent of respondents in Pennsylvania rated immigration as “extremely important.” And 52 percent of Pennsylvania voters said Trump would do a better job on immigration, compared to 39 percent for Harris. (The same poll showed Harris narrowly ahead of Trump in the state overall.)

Kevin Armstrong, whose Charleroi home is decorated with flags promoting Trump and denigrating Joe Biden, said many locals felt that the city's Haitian migrants were “living better than us and rubbing it in our faces.”

Haitians, along with Cubans who have been allowed into the U.S., are eligible for cash assistance under a resettlement program that undocumented migrants from other places generally cannot access unless they are granted refugee or asylum-seeker status .

“I'm 59 years old, I've worked all my life and they live better than me,” Mr Armstrong said. “You benefit from my advantages. You get the benefits of my father.”

“I don’t care what Trump says, they don’t cause any problems and they’re legal,” said one local who said he had worked with many Haitian migrants. “Look at where they come from, the history of Haiti. They don’t want problems, they want peace.”

Another woman, a restaurant worker, said she believes racism is the real problem.

“I personally don’t have a problem with it,” she said.

“They come here sometimes and are very, very nice.

“But a lot of people don’t feel that way, and they targeted them the moment they were here.”