'Ain’t taking anybody’s jobs': Trump blasted over Haitian lies — this time in Pennsylvania

At a rally in Pennsylvania this week the Republican nominee for President, Donald Trump, extended his attacks on Haitian immigrants, claiming that they have “inundated” small towns in the Keystone State in what he called an “invasion.”

The ex-president this time did not accuse the Haitian immigrants of “eating the cats” and “eating the dogs” of local residents, as he did, falsely, weeks ago when he and his running mate, JD Vice, targeted Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. But he did claim – falsely – that Haitian immigrants have “virtually bankrupt” the town of Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a manufacturing town of about 4000 with strong ties to the glassmaking industry, including Pyrex. The town is also known as the birthplace of actress and singer Shirley Jones.

“Trump’s repugnant new claims about immigrants” in Charleroi, writes The New Republic‘s Greg Sargent on Wednesday, “expose the ugly underbelly of that zero-sum messaging in a fresh way.”

“In western Pennsylvania,” Sargent writes, “Trump made one of his most savage anti-immigrant appeals yet. But one local official says it’s all a lie.”

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Charleroi Borough Manager Joe Manning, in an interview with Sargent, “flatly said that Trump’s claims are false or simply do not apply to his town in any sense. ‘There’s what the former president is saying,’ Manning told me, ‘and then there’s easily observable reality.'”

Trump falsely claimed Charleroi has seen a “2000%” increase in its population, thanks to immigrants.

“But that’s not close to true, according to Manning,” Sargent adds. “He says the town’s population of Haitians is actually ‘between 700 and 800.’ Manning pointed out that if Trump’s claim were true—and this town of just over 4,000 had seen a 2,000 percent increase—it would suddenly have a population closer to 100,000. Recounting this idea to me, Manning burst out laughing.”

Manning “noted that many of the Haitians work at a local packaging plant whose owner could not find workers, and went to an employment agency for help. That agency got Haitians to come work in the borough—in other words, locals, and not [Vice President Kamala] Harris, enticed them there—and they liked the place, Manning said, so they ‘put down roots.'”

“’They ain’t taking anybody’s jobs,’ Manning said, noting that they are helping revitalize the town, just as immigrants are reviving other Rust Belt towns amid postindustrial population decline. ‘They have occupied places that were vacant for years because a lot of people moved out of here,’ he noted.”

“They’re good neighbors,” says Manning.

Sargent on social media writes, “I think it’s crucial to realize that under the media-grabbing lies about Haitians, Trump is telling a *big story.* I have never seen him talk about small town USA in quite this way before. Reminds me of [Dissent Magazine’s Richard Yeselson’s] idea that Trump/Vance are running on 1920s nativist language.”

“The language is deliberate,” he adds.

Sargent points to this quote from Trump’s rally:

“Think of the cruelty Kamala Harris has inflicted on the people of Pennsylvania. You live in a small town your whole life. You pay your taxes. You really are exemplary. You pay everything. You do everything. You love your town. You love your country. You know the town so well. By name. You’re just so proud of it. And suddenly she flies in thousands and thousands of migrants from the most dangerous places on earth. And they deposit them right smack in the middle of your community.”

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NBC News shared some of Trump’s remarks from his Pennsylvania rally, and spoke to some local residents.

“We believe now diversity’s our super power,” Charleroi Schools Superintendent for ten years, Dr. Ed Zelich, told NBC. “We’re not struggling.”

NBC also talked to Misty Cassidy, a Trump supporter, who said, “There’s just so many people. There’s not enough resources, here’s not enough jobs. There’s not enough homes.”

“This is coming to a town near you,” Cassidy told NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor.

“What is coming to a town near you?” Alcindor asked.

“Haitians, or, immigrants,” she replied. “They’re not coming here to assimilate with us. They’re coming here to take over.”

Watch NBC’s report below or at this link.