Grieving Ohio Father Tells Trump and Vance to Stop Talking About His Son
The New York Times
Nathan Clark says the candidates are exploiting his son’s death in a crash caused by an immigrant outside the small city of Springfield. “This needs to stop now.”
Barely an hour before the presidential debate the father of an 11-year-old Ohio boy killed when an immigrant’s minivan crashed into a school bus lashed out at Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.
Speaking during public comment at a regular meeting of the Springfield City Commission, the father, Nathan Clark, called them “morally bankrupt” politicians spreading hate at the expense of his son, Aiden. Mr. Clark said, “This needs to stop now.”
The death of Aiden Clark, who was thrown from the bus after the minivan driver, who is Haitian, veered into oncoming traffic just over a year ago, shook residents of Springfield, a blue-collar town between Dayton and Columbus. And it touched off a wave of angry rhetoric over the thousands of immigrants from Haiti who have settled in the area since the pandemic.
But it was not until Mr. Vance took note in July that the city was thrust into the contentious national immigration debate.
Since then, Mr. Vance has been highlighting the influx of Haitians to Springfield as a detrimental consequence of the Biden administration’s border policies. The immigrants are in the country legally with authorization to work, and they have moved to the Springfield area to fill jobs in manufacturing and other industries.
