What the Springfield Cat Controversy Exposes About Immigration

Cats and dogs are a distraction

President Trump said, in his first debate with Democrat candidate Kamala Harris, that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs [...] eating the cats [...] eating the pets of the people that live there”. X was awash with AI-generated images of Trump surrounded by cats and saving them from hungry Haitians. Democrat politicians, city officials, and hostile media seek to distract from the failings of the Biden-Harris administration by debunking Trump’s hyperbole. But the story of small towns and cities in America, suffering from the costs and cultural consequences of mass demographic change, is being lost in the weeds of internet memes. Mass immigration is going horribly wrong in Springfield, Ohio — as it has across the US, UK, and Europe.

So far, the only arrest for eating a cat in Ohio (a sentence I never thought I’d write) is Allexis Ferrell, an Ohio native charged with animal cruelty, disorderly conduct, and breaking laws regarding a “companion animal”. But a recording procured by the Federalist reveals residents reported Haitian migrants abducting geese from local parks to Ohio police. A photo of a Haitian man holding a dead goose circulating X is from Columbus, not Springfield — but nevertheless shows some migrants think local wildlife is free for consumption. Over in New York, the authorities are investigating rising numbers of animal sacrifices in Jamaica Bay.

But the whole story is a distraction. Sensationalised stories of cats being spit-roasted in the streets obscure the human harms endured by the citizens of Springfield. As JD Vance, Ohio Senator and Trump’s Vice Presidential Candidate, pointed out, the “Haitians eating cats” headline was the only time mainstream media paid attention to American suburbs struggling with thousands of foreign nationals imposed on them by the federal government. Vance, to his credit, mentioned this story months ago at NatCon DC.

The day prior to the debate, Ohio governor Mike DeWine pledged to allocate more police officers and millions of taxpayer dollars to Springfield, where 15,000 - 20,000 Haitians have been settled in the city of 59,000. That’s a potential 30% population increase in four years. All were given “Temporary Protected Status”, immunising them from deportation. The number of healthcare providers, houses, schools, and other amenities necessary to accommodate all these people have not magically increased in that period. No wonder residents are becoming agitated, as forty-year inflation highs, planned tax increases, and scarcening services are pricing the working and middle classes out of the American Dream.

This state of affairs was entirely predictable. While America leads the way with net illegal border crossings, at 10 million under Biden and Harris, it trails Europe and the UK in manifested consequences. The home of America’s founders provides a model for its future, if this trend continues.

Let’s compare Ohio to England and Wales — the parts of the UK subjected to the highest concentration of immigration. Ohio is 40,847.9 square miles; England and Wales, >58,000. The Ohio population has been a relatively stable 11 million since 2000. Since 2001, the UK population has grown from 59 million to 67.6 million — with 60% due to direct contributions of net migration. 1.2 million legal immigrants are admitted every year. Net migration added 3.7 million people to the population from 2011 to 2021. Between New Labour’s election and 2023, net migration ran at a hundred times that seen between 1973 and 1997. More have arrived since then than between 1066 and the Second World War. Between 1998, when Prime Minister Tony Blair abolished exit checks, and 2017, there were estimated to be 1.2 million illegal migrants in Britain. Since 2018, another >135,000 have broken in via small boat across the English Channel.

Despite government departments refusing to publish figures, we’ve begun to tally the costs of these policies. Housing illegal migrants costs taxpayers an estimated £15 million a day; with the total asylum budget reaching £14.4 billion last year. The Home Office procured 16,000 private rental properties on five-year contracts to relocate them from hotels. This accommodation is furnished with satellite TVs, with the full cost hidden from the public citing risks to migrants’ “health and safety”. These costs will increase as the new Labour government seeks an “equitable dispersal” of illegal migrants across the UK. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has pledged every borough in Britain will receive their “fair share” of asylees, put up at taxpayer expense in new social housing developments. These populations are already overrepresented in subsidised housing — with 72% of Somalians in Britain living in a house given to them by the government.

Legal migrants are no less expensive. We are often told immigration is an economic necessity. While it is true that increasing the population is an expedient means of increasing GDP, it has also increased welfare dependency and caused productivity to flatline. As a result, GDP per capita has stagnated since the 2008 financial crisis, despite record levels of net migration.

Since 2011, 74% of all jobs created went to foreign workers. Since 2021, the composition of inward migration has inverted: from 80% EU, to 80% non-EU. The majority last year were Indian (+250,000) and Nigerian (+141,000) — responsible for the largest shares of employment growth (+488,000 and +279,000 respectively), but whose monthly median earnings have declined in real terms. The Office for Budget Responsibility revealed last week that these migrants cost taxpayers £151,000 each, assuming they arrive at age 25 and reach retirement age (66). This rises to £500,000 if they live to 80, and over £1 million by 100. The average British worker is a net contributor of £280,000 by the time they reach 66, with additional adjustments for education and health spending before they reach working age. Because “British born” doesn’t disaggregate second-generation migrants from the native population, this average is likely depressed, given trends in other European countries.

Data from Denmark demonstrates that migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, and Turkey, and their descendants, are an annual net drain of $4.9 billion. Non-EU migrants and their descendants in the Netherlands were an annual cost of €27 billion between 2016-2019; €400 billion net between 1995-2019. This group are, on average, never net tax contributors across their lifetimes. By contrast, Western European, East Asian, and Anglosphere migrants made annual net contributors of €1 billion.

Likewise, in Denmark, non-EU migrants and their second-generation descendants commit crimes at 2.5 times the rate of native Danes. They comprise 13% of the Danish population, but commit 25% of violent crime, and comprise almost 50% of the prison population. Sex offences in particular are committed by MENAPT migrants at three to nine times the rate of native Danes. In Germany, foreign nationals are 15% of the population, but committed 41% of crimes in 2023. Crimes committed by foreign suspects rose by 23% in 2022 and 18% in 2023.

In the UK, the Ministry of Justice refuses to publish data on the nationality of offenders. But freedom of information requests found migrants are 34% more likely to be arrested than UK nationals. 369,000 were arrested between 2021 and 2023. The Global Organised Crime Index found the UK was first in Western Europe, and second on the continent, for crimes committed by foreign actors in 2023. As of June 2023, at least 10,321 foreign nationals were in prison in England and Wales.

Cities all across America are seeing this pattern. In Ohio and other states, illegal migrants have been issued driving licences — with concerns they could use these to fraudulently vote in November’s election. Springfield residents are reporting “eight to 10 accidents a day”, after Haitian migrants were issued driving licences. A mother of three was hit by a Haitian Amazon delivery driver making an illegal turn last week, and was thankfully unharmed. Grandmother Kathy Heaton was struck and killed by a Haitian migrant driving with expired plates on December 1st 2023. Her killer was not charged. Eleven year-old Aiden Clark was killed, and twelve students injured, when a Haitian driving without a US licence caused a school bus to roll over.

Others crossing the Southern Border have committed brutal murders. Mother-of-five Rachel Morin was allegedly raped and murdered in Maryland by illegal El Salvadoran migrant Victor Martinez Hernandez in 2023. University of Georgia student Laken Riley was allegedly murdered by illegal Venezuelan migrant Jose Ibarra in February. Twelve-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was allegedly strangled to death and left in a creek by two illegal Venezuelan migrants in June. Last weekend, an illegal migrant from the Dominican Republic was arrested for the murders of a family of four in upstate New York — including a four- and two-year-old. Despite articles running cover for Kamala Harris’s negligent stewardship of the Southern border, insisting illegal migrants commit less crime than US nationals, it is important to remember that every single one of these atrocities was avoidable. If these criminals had not been let into the country, every one of these innocent victims would be alive and with their families.

So it’s particularly embittering when millionaire musician John Legend insists we extend limitless generosity to “our Haitian brothers and sisters”, from his bespoke mansion in Beverly Hills. We all hope Legend’s own family never suffers a tragedy like those the families of Heaton, Clark, Morin, Riley, Nungaray, and Ubaldo-Moreno/Santiago have to live with. Fortunately, that’s unlikely: given Legend can afford private security to watch over those he loves most — while he gives interviews urging the government to deprive others of the same right, using legally purchased firearms. It is the peak of Luxury Beliefs for Legend to privatise the profits of preaching compassion on social media, and externalise the costs to the struggling and bereaved families of cities like Springfield. We saw the same reluctance to house the third-world’s huddled masses in their own backyard when Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott bussed illegal immigrants from Florida and Texas to “sanctuary destination” Martha’s Vineyard — and residents promptly removed them the following day.

But even if the likes of John Legend or the federal government could fund the flat-pack assembly enough accommodation to house the whole of Haiti in Ohio: why should they be compelled to? Immigration is not a question of mere logistics. People are not purely rational economic actors. Immigrants bring with them personal and cultural baggage, which does not suddenly dissolve once they set foot on foreign soil. As much as outlets like The Guardian insist immigrants had “revived” cities like Springfield until “the Far-Right” showed up, the residents themselves may not share that sentiment. As Eric Kaufmann writes in Whiteshift, concerns about migration are founded primarily in questions of belonging, but often expressed as concerns about economics and infrastructure. Feeling like your local area is subject to dizzying cultural change, with no democratic consent, is just as legitimate a grievance against migration as rising crime rates, scarcening housing supply, or geese being abducted and eaten from local parks. It is all the more insulting when those charged with defending America’s national security, such as Secretary Mayorkas, are derelict of their duties, but spared consequences by partisan colleagues.

It should not take a media circus around Donald Trump citing anecdotes about Haitians eating dogs to get the federal government to pay attention to the suffering caused by America’s porous Southern Border. But it appears the Biden-Harris administration would rather distract from their record, as they approach a close election, than admit their suicidal empathy and cynical political opportunism have inflicted avoidable tragedies on American citizens.