Ohio Haitian immigrants say they are afraid to leave home after recent backlash
(NEW YORK) — Haitian migrants residing in Springfield, Ohio, shared with ABC News their harrowing experiences of living in constant fear, expressing deep concerns about their safety that prevent them from venturing outside their homes.
In a town of more than 58,000 residents, threats of bombings and shootings led to the closure of city buildings and schools for several days. Wittenberg University canceled all activities on Sunday and classes on Monday as a precautionary measure.
James Fleurijean, a Haitian Community Help & Support Center member, stated that the continual spread of false and divisive statements from prominent politicians was fostering an environment of fear.
“I know some parents like for this period of time they’re trying to keep their children home, like, by the time they see how things gonna be, like, wait for a couple of weeks to see if things that are calm down, or if things gonna escalate,” Fleurijean said. “You see, that’s why, like some parents, they don’t even send their children to school, like, for this week.”
Politicians, including former President Donald Trump, have heightened their fears. At the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last week, Trump claimed, “In Springfield, people are resorting to eating dogs, cats, and other household pets.”
Trump did not specify the ethnicity of the migrants he claimed were eating pets in Springfield, but on X, his running mate JD Vance continuously raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services.
“Kamala Harris dropped 20,000 Haitian migrants into a small Ohio town and chaos has ensued,” Vance said on X.
Vance appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and informed reporters that Ohio locals have been lodging complaints for at least a year now.
“I have heard firsthand from multiple constituents – people who made 911 calls a month ago, a year ago, who were making these complaints,” Vance said. “I trust my constituents more than I do the American media that has shown no interest in what’s happened in Springfield until we started sharing cat memes on the Internet.”
ABC News spoke with a 28-year-old Haitian man who wanted to remain anonymous. He said he had come to Springfield from New Jersey less than a year ago to search for work. While waiting for ABC News, a passerby yelled “TRUMP” at him, he said.
The man mentioned that he used to see a lot of Haitians on the street, but he doesn’t see them anymore. He believes they are afraid. He mentioned that the Haitian community has felt terrorized.
Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has dismissed the rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets as nonsense. He says the discussion has to stop and the focus should be on moving forward, not dogs and cats.
“Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in,” DeWine said. “These Haitians came in to work for these companies. They’re very happy to have them there. And, frankly, that’s helped the economy.”
The majority of the 12,000 to 15,000 migrants who have arrived in Springfield over the past four years are from Haiti, according to the city of Springfield. These Haitian migrants left their country due to gang-related violence and poverty, in search of stability, safety, and job opportunities. They came to the U.S. under the Temporary Protected Status designation.
(NEW YORK) — Newly released documents describe the chaotic moments on board Alaska Airlines flight 1282 after the door plug blew out shortly after takeoff earlier this year, as the National Transportation Safety Board holds a two-day hearing into the matter.
The NTSB released thousands of pages of documents and interview transcripts, including with members of the crew, on Tuesday, amid its investigation into the Jan. 5 blowout on the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane.
The crew described the frantic, confusing moments after the door plug blew out minutes after taking off from Portland International Airport during interviews with NTSB investigators.
Because flight attendants were strapped into their jump seats in the galley, they had no idea what had just happened, the documents show. They also could not see into the cabin and were focusing on getting their oxygen masks on. They only knew there was a depressurization event because an automated PA announcement came on to alert passengers to use their masks, the documents show. Bright cabin lights also turned on.
Communication in the cockpit was extremely limited because of noise. Headsets flew off and the oxygen masks were making a squealing noise after the pilots took them off, according to the documents. The pilots decided to put the masks back on to stop the squealing, but then their eye protection began to fog on the final approach, according to the documents.
The pilots had to continuously repeat certain messages to air traffic controllers because the audio was so bad, according to the documents.
Flight attendants also could not make contact with the flight deck because of the noise. One flight attendant told NTSB investigators she didn’t know if there was a hole in the plane in the flight deck and worried the pilots may have been incapacitated, before ultimately being able to make contact with them, according to the documents.
“The scariest thing was I didn’t have exact communication with my flight deck and at first I didn’t know if the decompression was in the front, if we have pilots, and not being able to fully communicate with the back and just know exactly what happened and what was going on,” the unidentified flight attendant told the NTSB, according to the documents. “I think out of all, that was probably the scariest part out of all that.”
The rear flight attendant was initially certain that passengers died, the crew member told NTSB investigators. The flight was nearly full with the exception of a few seats; the two seats next to the missing door plug happened to be empty. When the rear flight attendant felt it was safe enough to leave his oxygen mask, he saw empty seats near the hole and was sure people were sucked out, he told the NTSB, adding that it’s so rare for people not to move into an empty window seat or empty row on a full flight.
“At the point where I first saw the hole, I saw five empty seats,” he told investigators. “In that moment I thought we lost — I was certain that we had lost people because we were full except for a few open seats and I did not recall that 26 A and B had not been occupied. So I was absolutely certain that we had lost people out of the hole and that we had casualties.”
The plane safely made an emergency landing and no one was seriously injured in the incident. Tray tables were ripped off and hit passengers on their way out of the aircraft, and one teen lost his top and was badly bruised, according to the documents.
The pilots had no idea there was a hole in the plane until after the plane landed and passengers deplaned, according to the documents.
“I knew that there was something wrong,” one pilot said, according to the transcript. “I knew that there was a — there was air being brought into the airplane where there shouldn’t be, but I had no idea if it was a hole, if it was a window, if it was a main cabin door. I had no idea. I had no idea. I never heard anything from the flight attendants.”
The NTSB has not been able to interview the 737 door plug manager because the employee is on medical leave, the agency said.
The documents were publicly released as NTSB began holding an investigative hearing into the door plug incident. The hearing, held on Tuesday and Wednesday, will “assist in obtaining information necessary to determine the facts, circumstances, and probable cause of the transportation accident or incident under investigation and to make recommendations to improve transportation safety,” the NTSB said in a statement.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Boeing Commercial Airplanes senior executive Elizabeth Lund said the company is working on a design change of the door plug to make it even more secure. Planes currently in service will be retrofitted hopefully within a year, she said.
After Lund detailed changes the company has implemented in the months following the incident under increased oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy issued a “word of caution.”
“This is not a PR campaign for Boeing,” she said. “You can talk all about where you are today. There’s going to be plenty of time for that. We want to know the safety improvements. But what is very confusing for a lot of people who are watching, who are listening, is what was going on then. This is an investigation on what happened on Jan. 5.”
An NTSB preliminary report released in February found that four bolts designed to prevent the door plug from falling off the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane were missing before the plug blew off the flight.
Boeing records reviewed by the NTSB showed that damaged rivets on the edge frame forward of the plug were replaced by Spirit AeroSystems employees at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington, on Sept. 19, 2023, according to the agency’s report.
Boeing had to open the plug by removing the two vertical movement arrestor bolts and two upper guide track bolts for the rivets to be replaced, but photo documentation obtained from Boeing showed evidence that the plug was closed with no bolts in three visible locations, according to the NTSB report.
One bolt area is obscured by insulation in the photo, though the NTSB said it was able to determine in its laboratory that that bolt was also not put back on.
During the hearing Tuesday, Lund said that paperwork authorizing the removal of the door plug, which would have documented the work being done, has not been found.
Homendy also addressed the culture between Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, after one unidentified Spirit employee told NTSB investigators, “Well, basically we’re the cockroaches of the factory.”
“What have you done since March to address that issue? Have you gotten feedback from your employees?” she asked Michael Riney, a customer relations director from Spirit AeroSystems based at the Renton facility.
Riney responded that he would discuss with his managers “to ensure they are soliciting that feedback” and would “personally follow up with them to understand what specifically I can do to help with that.”
(WICHITA, Kan.) — A firefighter in Kansas has lost his life in the line of duty while battling a house fire in Wichita, according to the Wichita Fire Department.
The incident occurred on Thursday at approximately 3:22 p.m. when the currently unnamed firefighter was battling a house fire in Haysville, Kansas.
“The Wichita Fire Department and the City of Wichita are extremely saddened to announce that at approximately 3:22 PM while operating at a mutual aid fire in Haysville, one of Wichita’s bravest was injured in the line of duty, and later succumbed to their injury,” the statement said. “The Wichita Fire Department is working to ensure family members are all appropriately notified.”
Authorities say that they will not be releasing the name of the firefighter who died until next of kin has been informed and they are asking “the same of anyone that may know the firefighter.”
“This is a loss that deeply weighs heavily on all of us. All of the dedicated individuals who serve our fire department do so knowing the immense risk they are undertaking and do it with noble, selfless regard,” said the Wichita Fire Department. “It does not make their sacrifice any less immense. Nor the sacrifice of their loved ones and family any easier.”
“Please keep this firefighters family and crew in your prayers,” authorities continued. “We will update the community on any additional information as it becomes available.”
(NEW YORK) — The Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of keeping a proposition about abortion access on the state’s ballot, directing Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft to certify the proposition.
The order reversed a decision by a lower court and came after Ashcroft had decertified the proposition.
If passed in November by Missouri voters, the initiative would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution and allow the state to regulate abortion after fetal viability, which is generally around 24 weeks.
“The Right to Reproductive Freedom” ballot initiative, spearheaded by the group Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, would also enshrine rights related to reproductive health care into the Missouri Constitution, “including but not limited to prenate care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions,” according to the text of the initiative.
Abortion is currently banned in Missouri with few exceptions, according to an analysis of state laws by KFF.
Abortion-related ballot initiatives are confirmed on the general election ballots in 10 states: Maryland, Florida, South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, and New York.
In Nebraska, the initiatives are still dealing with legal challenges. (In New York, the initiative does not explicitly mention abortion and involves additional reproductive rights and other issues.)
Advocates supporting abortion access celebrated the Missouri Supreme Court decision.
Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, wrote in a statement, “Today’s decision is a victory for both direct democracy and reproductive freedom in Missouri… Missourians overwhelmingly support reproductive rights, including access to abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care. Now, they will have the chance to enshrine these protections in the Missouri Constitution on November 5.”
Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, the Democratic nominee for governor of Missouri, told ABC News in a statement, “I am grateful the Missouri Supreme Court saw through yet another attempt from the extremist anti-abortion politicians in Jefferson City to keep Missourians from having their say at the ballot box.”
Mary Catherine Martin, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society and an attorney who argued in the case, indicated that she feels the amendment will have adverse effects if passed — while indicating that it is settled legally that it will be on the ballot.
Martin said in a statement, “The Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to allow Amendment 3 to remain on the November ballot is a failure to protect voters, by not upholding state laws that ensure voters are fully informed going into the ballot box. It is deeply unfortunate the court decided to ignore laws that protect voters in order to satisfy pro-abortion activists who intentionally omitted critical information from the initiative petition.”
She added, “Missouri’s Amendment 3 will have far-reaching implications on the state’s abortion laws and well beyond… We implore Missourians to research and study the text and effects of Amendment 3 before going to the voting booth.”