Pop star John Legend has urged residents of his hometown of Springfield, Ohio, to accept the many “challenges” that come with a large “influx of Haitian immigrants,” while insisting that it's safe for local pets to serve up dinner at the dinner table.
“You may have heard about Springfield, Ohio, this week,” Legend, 45, said. Long Instagram Videos On Thursday, he noted that his hometown had been “discussed by the presidential candidates” during the previous night's debate.
“Nobody eats cats. Nobody eats dogs,” the two-time Emmy Award-winning singer insisted, firmly denying former President Donald Trump's now-viral allegations.
“What about us loving another person?” he asked, giving his real name as “John R. Stevens of Springfield.”
The “All of Me” pop star said that while his home city had seen an “influx of Haitian immigrants,” this came after Springfield's population had been “declining for decades.”
“There weren't enough opportunities, so everyone left and went somewhere else,” said Legend, who changed her Instagram handle to indicate she was from Springfield even though she moved several years ago.
“When I was there we had over 75,000 employees, but in the last five years we've gone down to around 60,000,” he said.
He said Haitians who “came to our country legally” were helping to fill those jobs, but acknowledged “challenges” posed by a “25 percent increase” in his homeland's population due to newly arrived immigrants.
“Growing pains” for Springfield also include an influx of people with “new languages, new cultures” and “new dietary preferences,” Legend said.
“So there are a lot of reasons why this is a challenge for my hometown,” he added, likening it to immigrants who have come for decades chasing the “American Dream.”
“I think we all need to have the same kind of tolerance towards our Haitian brothers and sisters that we would want for our ancestors.”
Legend also gave his followers “some facts about immigration.”
“They generally do well here,” Legend said. “They're hard-working. They're ambitious. There's less crime than native-born Americans, and they eventually assimilate and blend in, but it takes time.”
“I was raised in the Christian tradition. We were taught to love our neighbor as ourselves and treat the stranger as if he were Christ,” Legend said.
“So how about we embrace that spirit when we talk about immigrants moving into our communities and not spread hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them,” he concluded his lecture, signing off at the end of the video with “John R. Stevens of Springfield.”
The allegation that Haitian immigrants are eating pets was intensified earlier this week when President Trump took to the stage at a presidential debate to say that immigrants in Springfield were kidnapping pets for food.
“They're eating dogs. They're eating cats. They're eating the pets of the people who live there,” the Republican candidate said.
The discussion moderator quickly fact-checked the allegations, pointing out that city officials have said the claims are untrue.
In an interview News Nation Anchorman Chris Cuomo and Springfield Mayor Rob Lew denied the former president's claims about Haitian immigrants in the city.
“Springfield is still beautiful and the pets in Springfield, Ohio are safe, they're safe,” Lu told the former CNN anchor.
“So what this did is it created a negative light that we obviously didn't want, that we didn't want.”
Lu said the city has no control over the influx of migrants, but that rumours of their strange behaviour are “frustrating.”
“These allegations are completely false. And I can also say that we've never seen any reports of them. There's a lot of buzz on the internet, but that's not what we're seeing. It's a bit frustrating.”
Roux also confirmed the legendary claim that the city created jobs that attracted Haitian immigrants to the Ohio city.
“We've been in economic decline for a long time, but in the last 10 years, about 8,000 jobs have been added to our community,” Lu said.
“There's a lot of good things happening in Springfield.”
