The fall was great, because the town was great.

Michael Morris, who was born here and stayed, is driving my husband David and I around a barren area that used to be the working-class neighborhoods of Springfield, Ohio. He describes a thriving place where people could walk to work and to church, leave their doors unlocked because they knew their neighbors, get a drink with friends at the bar on the corner. “They didn’t live elaborately,” he says, “but they took care of things.” The rows of mansions on a nearby street indicate a socioeconomic integration that drove investment in a shared physical place.

Now, there are dilapidated houses, boarded-up windows, grime. The remains of bygone industry—piles of broken concrete, sagging buildings among weeds—run parallel to the railroad track in long stretches. As Michael points and narrates, there’s something about it that feels a bit like a crime scene investigation: what happened?

The town became the center of attention during the 2024 election, and while President Trump’s claims about pet eating were named Politifact’s “Lie of the Year,” vociferous city commission meetings suggested that residents on both sides had more to say about the estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Haitian migrants who had come to Springfield since 2020 under Temporary Protected Status.

Trump won Clark County, which includes Springfield, with 63.9% of the vote, the best performance for any Republican presidential candidate in the county since 1928. Things were closer in the city itself, but Trump narrowly won Springfield after having lost it four years earlier to President Biden. After taking office, the Trump administration ended TPS for Haitians last summer, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known by its acronym ICE, began activity in the area in August.

Initially drawn to Springfield because of this story, after talking with a dozen residents and people with connections to the area, I came to see a larger story, one that began decades earlier.