Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski, a Republican who backs Trump, likens people in the U.S. illegally to “human locusts.”

Portage County Sheriff Bruce D. Zuchowski wrote in a follow-up post he "as the elected sheriff" has a "First Amendment right, as do all citizens."

The attention on Springfield then became amplified again when the Republican vice presidential candidate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, took to X to claim that people in the city have had their “pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”