AP Explains: Migration is more complex than politics show

For decades politicians in both parties have bemoaned a U.S. immigration system that virtually all call broken. Attempts at comprehensive reform have failed and popular emotion and partisan rancor have it a new high over the last two years as cities and towns struggled to accommodate migrants.

With emotions high, Republican-led states have bussed new arrivals to Democratic-led cities. The presidential election now has shifted the spotlight to a city whose latest residents are legally in the country.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance have jumped on disproven rumors that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating household pets.

The bottom line: Immigrants are coming and staying in this country through a mix of methods and programs that are not easily captured or acknowledged in political rhetoric, but fearmongering over immigration is nearly as old as the country itself.