On September 9, a staffer working for GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance contacted the city manager of Springfield, Ohio, to ascertain the truth around rumors of Haitian immigrants eating local pets, only to be told that such claims were entirely baseless, according to a Wall Street Journal report. But that did not stop Vance, former President Donald Trump, and a constellation of allies from parroting those smears, sowing chaos in the small city and stoking widespread fury that is threatening the safety of Haitian-Americans.
The pet-eating rumor, originally circulated by neo-Nazi groups, has been part of a buffet of stories that Trump has used to inflame anger and fear towards immigrant communities. Vance posted the story on his X account in early September, and despite the flurry of criticism, later insisted on CNN that he heard firsthand accounts from Springfield residents confirming that Haitian immigrants were eating their pets. The media, he claimed, refused to pay attention “until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes … if I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
Springfield is now dealing with the fallout, with local officials receiving thirty-six bomb threats as of Tuesday evening, which Bryan Heck, the city manager, said has induced “fear and panic” and “depleting resources.” Vance, refusing to back down, provided the WSJ with a police report in which a Springfield resident claimed that her cat might have been abducted by her Haitian neighbors. But when a WSJ reporter visited Anne Kilgore’s house that evening, she said that Miss Sassy, who went missing in August, had since reappeared in her basement. Kilgore later apologized to her neighbors with the help of her daughter and a translation app.
Vance has also said that Trump would like to visit Springfield soon so that he might see with his own eyes the Haitian-American community that he has promised to deport en masse, despite most of them enjoying legal status.
About 15,000 Haitians, fleeing from violence and instability in their home country, have moved to Springfield in the past four years, helping the economically struggling town recover from a precipitous drop in population (from 83,000 in 1960 to 59,000 in 2020). The influx of new residents was initially welcomed by evangelical leaders and employers, who appreciated Haitian workers for helping them meet production goals and boost the local economy. But local resources strained to cover overwhelmed hospitals treating people who had fled from a country that lacked even the most basic healthcare, while the number of non-English speakers enrolled in local schools quadrupled to more than 1,000 children. A road accident in which a Haitian man without a valid U.S. license inadvertently drove his minivan into a school bus, injuring scores of children and killing Aiden Clark, a local student, further inflamed tensions.
Outside Neo-Nazi groups exploited the situation to hold rallies in Springfield and spread tales of pet-eating that have now reached the top levels of political discourse. Springfield officials have struggled to get Trump and his allies to back down on the rumors” we have told those at the national level that they are speaking these things that are untrue,” Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, a registered Republican, told the WSJ. But he said the claims have been “repeated and doubled down on.”
Numerous other towns with Haitian immigrant communities are also now in the crosshairs of right-wing influencers seeking to generate controversy. Libs of TikTok posted a video Tuesday purporting to show Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign busing in Haitian immigrants to work in food factories in Chaleroi, Pennsylvania. The post earned a rebuke from Pennsylvania state senator Camera Bartolotta, a Republican, who said that the immigrant workers were given transportation by the business owner, who was on the verge of having to close down his facility in a town with “no workforce” a few years ago, before an influx of Haitians escaping “horrific conditions in their home country” helped keep him afloat.
“You are playing into the hands of people who are jeopardizing the safety of innocent children in our local school,” she wrote. “These Haitians are working hard, sending their children to school and opening businesses. They are here legally. They did not cross the border … please, check the facts before posting information that jeopardizes the safety of good, hard working people.”
Read more
about anti-immigrant politics