Donald Trump is planning a visit to Springfield, Ohio — the community that has been inundated with threats since he started spreading lies about Haitian immigrants eating the pets of residents, MSNBC reports.

“Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) offered one of the most vociferous defenses of Haitian immigrants in Springfield yet from a Republican as their presence in the city becomes a chief point of criticism from former President Donald Trump,” ABC News reports.

Said DeWine: “I think it’s unfortunate that this came up. Let me tell you what we do know, though. What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in. These Haitians came in to work for these companies.”

Donald Trump used increasingly harsh rhetoric Friday in describing Haitian migrants in Ohio, saying they’re “destroying their way of life” and threatened mass deportations, Politico reports.

Said Trump: “Illegal Haitian migrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life.”

New York Times: “Trump repeated his promise to conduct the largest deportation operation in American history, but said he would start in Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colo., two cities at the center of baseless and misleading claims he has made about migrants taking over buildings and bringing crime and disease to towns.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) dismissed claims amplified by Donald Trump earlier this week that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield, telling CBS News the internet “can be quite crazy sometimes.”

New York Times: “There is no indication that noncitizens are voting in large numbers. And yet the notion that they will flood the polls — and vote overwhelmingly for Democrats — is animating a sprawling network of Republicans who mobilized around former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a rigged election in 2020 and are now preparing for the next one.”

Washington Post: “Donald Trump came here on Thursday to heap praise on the structure standing to his right — ‘the Rolls-Royce of walls,’ he called it — and lament the unused segments lying to his left. Joining him there, Border Patrol union leader Paul Perez called the standing fence ‘Trump wall’ and the idle parts ‘Kamala wall,’ after his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.”

“Those labels were inaccurate. This section of 20-foot steel slats was actually built during former president Barack Obama’s administration. Trump added the unfinished extension up the hillside, an engineering challenge that cost at least $35 million a mile. The unused panels of 30-foot beams were procured during the Trump administration and never erected.”

“Donald Trump on Thursday said the cost to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is justified and would not rule out separating families made up of citizens and noncitizens,” NBC News reports.

Said Trump: “It’ll cost trillions of dollars to keep these people, and I’m talking about in particular starting with the criminals. That’s costing us a lot more than deporting. But we have no choice, regardless, we have no choice. We’re going to have to deport.”

“When pressed, Trump provided no details on how he would pay for his plan, which could cost billions of dollars to implement at scale.”

Washington Post: “More than $247 million was spent in the first six months of this year on television, streaming platform and digital ads that mention immigration, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign advertising. That is $40 million more than ads that mention any other issue.
Over 90 percent of the ads supported Republican candidates and were paid for by their campaigns or political action committees backing them.”

“The level of spending underscores how important Republicans view border security and immigration in this year’s elections. While polls show voters overall rank issues at the border as less important to them than the economy, inflation and protecting democracy, Republican voters consistently rank it as among the most important…”

“Taken as a whole, the ads convey an unrealistic portrait of the border as being overrun and inaccurately characterize immigrants generally as a threat, of which there is little evidence. FBI data show U.S. border cities are among the nation’s safest. And a 2023 report from a group of economists found immigrants are at least 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born individuals.”