Is Lockland The Next Springfield Ohio?
LOCKLAND - The Small town of Lockland Ohio, located in Hamilton county, has just seen their population double thanks to the Biden-Harris administration. The small town of 3500 has seen their population double and natives put into a minority by an estimated 3000 immigrants from the nation of Mauritania, located in West Africa.
Unlike Mayor Rob Rue of Springfield Ohio, Lockland Mayor Mark Mason is speaking out on the significant strain the massive population influx has put on the town. According to Mason, the immigrants have led to a significant impact on emergency services, finances and resources. According to Mason, the immigrants are being directed to the area through apps like TikTok and Whatsapp. According to the Associated Press, The spike in migration was made possible by the discovery this year of a new route through Nicaragua, where relaxed entry requirements allow Mauritanians and a handful of other foreign nationals to purchase a low-cost visa without proof of onward travel. Word of the entry point spread through social media, directing residents to connect through Turkey, Colombia and El Salvador, and wind up in Managua, Nicaragua. From there, the migrants, along with immigrants from other nations, are taken north by bus with the help of smugglers.
"If they're going to have an open border policy they're going to need a policy to direct these immigrants to communities that can withstand that kind of population outburst. 1.2 square mile village — it's unsustainable," Mason said.
It has been widely acknowledged that immigration leads to the depression of wages, overcrowding the job market and stagnation of wages as they compete for employment with native born workers. As Springfield, Ohio has shown us, the mass influx of migrants also takes a strain on housing, often leading to the eviction of native residents in pursuit of secured government funding through federal aid programs that can pay out more, driving the overall cost of housing up and the homeless rate with it. Additionally, ‘official’ statistics put the number of households of illegal immigrants on government assistance to around 60%, with unofficial statistics being much higher, meaning the significant pull on government finances is felt in any community they land in. Even legal immigrants are known to send near half their income back to their home countries meaning a significant loss to the countries they inhabit.
“We’re looking at, right now, at probably close to a $200,000 shortfall in our earnings income tax revenue,” Mason said.
At this time, the village of Lockland is not receiving any additional support from the state or Federal Government. As previously stated in Ohio Democrat letters to the Governor, the only reason assistance was provided to Springfield was due to the comments made by President Donald Trump. No such comments have been made about Lockland. It is also possible the significant difference in how the two towns are handling the situation may come down to the fact that Mayor Mason is not personally profiting from the immigration like Springfield Mayor Rob Rue. “We didn’t ask for them to come here. There’s people out there saying, ‘Oh, Lockland’s making money off this.’ We’re not making a dime off this. If anything, it’s costing us money.”
Another significant departure in how the two towns are handling the Biden-Harris migration is in the transparency from local emergency services. Springfield Police Department recently encrypted their communication channels, preventing the general public from listening to the dispatch channels, potentially in an attempt to hide the fact that the city is not prosecuting migrants who commit misdemeanor crimes which could get them deported. Conversely, Lockland’s fire chief, Doug Wehmeyer has openly spoken about the number of emergency calls being screened for open fires in city limits made to cook, caused by the migrants, which may have led to at least two structural fires.
“In 35 years in the fire service, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more people standing outside the outside of a building as I did when we arrived on scene,” Wehmeyer said.
At this time there is no formal plan on how to handle such massive migration for areas like Springfield or Lockland. President Donald Trump has vowed to tackle the issue with mass deportations should he win the election.
