Contrary to what David Muir and his mainstream media colleagues would have you believe, the story coming out of Springfield, Ohio, isn’t about Haitians eating people’s pets.

The story is about what happens to a town when its population surges by a third practically overnight due to a massive influx of immigrants.

During last night’s debate, when Donald Trump invoked the name of the besieged Ohio town — whose population has exploded from 60,000 to 80,000 as the Biden/Harris administration has flooded it with some 20,000 Haitians — Muir, the debate moderator and the anchor of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” “fact-checked” Trump in real time. (Here, I should pause to acknowledge the seeming superfluity of such a story on this day of all days. Here, I should say: Never forget.)

“In Springfield,” said Trump, “they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — 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.”

To which Muir helpfully replied on behalf of Kamala Harris: “I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

A day earlier, The New York Times and numerous other so-called fact-checkers had raced to their keyboards to defend the indefensible: the unprovoked attack by the Biden/Harris administration on this everyday Midwestern town.

The story, then, is about what 20,000 immigrants do — both immediately and over time — to the delicate fabric of a small community. We don’t talk about assimilation in this country anymore. It’s a dirty word. Our kids aren’t being taught about the Great American Melting Pot anymore because those concepts are now somehow racist or patriarchal or white supremacist.

And yet, here we are, with as many as 16 million illegal immigrants having poured across our southern border during the three and a half years of the Biden/Harris administration. Springfield residents long ago began voicing their concerns about what was happening to their particular town. They began speaking out about the influx of Haitians and the special legal status they’ve been afforded by the Biden/Harris administration.

How did it happen? In June, citing civil unrest in Haiti, the Biden/Harris administration granted “temporary legal status” to 300,000 Haitians. That status was granted to any Haitian who was in the U.S. on or before June 3, and it lasts until at least February 2026, allowing these immigrants to stay in the U.S. and find work here.

Why is Springfield being overrun, as opposed to other towns? City Manager Bryan Heck says his town is attractive to immigrants “because of its affordable housing and job openings.” Yeah, right. That’s why numerous residents have said they’ve seen “buses” of these immigrants “being dropped off at gas stations and laundromats.”

And what happens to all these immigrants after February 2026, when their special status expires? You tell me. But I’m willing to bet they won’t be rounded up and returned to Port au Prince.

“These Haitians,” said Springfield’s Anthony Harris at an August 27 town meeting, “are running into trash cans, they’re running into buildings, they’re running into — they’re flipping cars in the middle of the street. I don’t know how, like, y'all can be comfortable with this. … I honestly feel like someone’s getting paid from it in the background.”

As for family pets being barbecued, Harris added, “Haitians are in the park grabbing ducks, cutting the heads off, and eating them.”

“Haitians are in the park grabbing ducks, cutting the heads off, and eating them”

Springfield resident to City Council: pic.twitter.com/aZLsOT8v2b

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 8, 2024

Another resident, Diana Daniels, pushed back against the mainstream media’s insinuation that this isn’t so much about 20,000 immigrants as it is about 20,000 black-skinned immigrants: “Countries,” she said, “are defined by their culture and their language, not the color. When folks stand up here and describe what is happening to them, they are often painted with the broad brush of racism that has nothing to do with it.”

This isn’t about racism. It’s about open-borders immigration.

When we stopped talking about the melting pot, we stopped talking about what had long made our nation great. And when we opened up our borders with no assimilating expectations from those who came across, we did violence to the fabric of America.

Springfield, Ohio, is just the latest example of this violence.