Since the 1980s, Springfield, Ohio, has experienced economic decline and demographic changes, marked by the closure of major factories and the loss of industrial jobs. Once a thriving manufacturing hub, the city now faces high unemployment and growing poverty. The population has dropped from over 80,000 to 50,000 people, 20,000 of whom are Haitian.

In Haiti, gangs have ravaged the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding areas, killing, raping, and kidnapping thousands, leaving hundreds of thousands without homes and unemployed, deepening poverty throughout the country. Haitians began...