John Legend spoke out on Thursday about Donald Trump's attack on Haitian immigrants in the singer's hometown of Springfield, Ohio.
During Tuesday's presidential debate, the former president suggested that Springfield's Haitian immigrants take over the city.
“They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people who live there,” he said.
In a video posted to social media Thursday, Legend reminded his fans that he grew up in Springfield.
“You may have heard about Springfield, Ohio this week,” the “All of Me” singer said. “In fact, if you watched the debate, we talked about our presidential candidates, including a very special and interesting man named Donald J. Trump.”
Legend spent several minutes talking about Springfield’s history. “Our city had been shrinking for decades,” he said. “We didn’t have enough jobs, we didn’t have enough opportunities. So people were leaving and going elsewhere. So when I was there, we had over 75,000 people. And in the last five years, we were down to about 60,000 people. But recently, during the Biden administration, more jobs have opened up, more manufacturing jobs, more plants, factories that needed workers and were ready to hire people. So we had a lot of job opportunities and we didn’t have enough people in our city of 60,000 to fill those positions. And at the same time, there was upheaval and turmoil in Haiti and the federal government granted visas and immigration status to a number of Haitian immigrants so they could come into our country legally.”
The singer said Springfield has added “about 15,000 immigrants” to its population of 60,000. “You might say, 'Wow, that's a lot of people.' For a city that used to have 60,000, that's a 25 percent increase. Exactly.”
He acknowledged the challenges that have arisen as a result of demographic change. “You could imagine there being challenges in integrating a new population, a new language, a new culture, new food preferences. All sorts of reasons why there might be some growth issues: making sure there are enough services to accommodate the new, larger population that might need bilingual service providers, etc., etc. So there are a lot of reasons why this might be a challenge for my hometown.”
Regardless, Legend said, “The bottom line is that these people came to Springfield because there were jobs for them, and they were willing to work, and they wanted to live the American dream.”
He compared the stories of those in Springfield to “your German ancestors, your Irish ancestors, your Italian ancestors, your Jewish ancestors, your Jamaican ancestors, your Polish ancestors. All of these ancestors moved to this country, maybe not speaking the language that everyone else spoke, maybe not eating the same food, maybe having to adapt.”
He continued: “But they all came here because they saw an opportunity for themselves and their families in the American dream, and they came here to do it.”
Legend then spoke about welcoming immigrants into all communities. “Some facts about immigrants,” he said. “They usually do very well here. They're hardworking, they're ambitious. They commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans, and they will assimilate and integrate over time. But it takes time, so I think we all need to have the same kind of grace that we wish our ancestors had.”
She added: “Nobody eats cats, nobody eats dogs. We just want to live, thrive and raise our families in a safe and healthy environment. How about we love each other?”
Legend's statement concluded with a question to his fans: “I was raised in the Christian tradition. We were taught to love our neighbors as ourselves and to treat strangers as if they were Christ. Why don't we adopt that ethos when we talk about immigrants moving into our communities and spread hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them?”