Prominent Republicans, including members of the Trump campaign and JD Vance, are spreading false and unsubstantiated claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets and local wildlife in an Ohio town.
The offensive and often racist social media posts claim without evidence that migrants from Haiti to Springfield, Ohio, are stealing pets and local wildlife such as ducks and geese and slaughtering them for consumption. Many of the posts, including one shared by the Republican X-Account on the House Judiciary Committee, use artificial intelligence-generated images showing Donald Trump holding and protecting cats and ducks, portraying him as the city’s savior. Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, shared a meme of two cats hugging with the caption, “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”
The Springfield News-Sun reported Monday that police “have not received any reports of pets being stolen or eaten.”
The claims apparently originated from a commentator at a local town meeting who said migrants were snatching ducks from the park to kill and eat, as well as from local crime-fighting Facebook groups. They were then shared on other social media platforms and made it into a Daily Mail headline.
The misinformation about migrants in Springfield comes at a time when the Trump campaign has sought to make immigration a central issue, linking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to cities that are unprepared for migrants arriving across the southern border. Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said on Fox that the Biden administration is to blame for “abandoning cities like ours and taxing us beyond our limits.”
The city has seen large numbers of migrants from Haiti, both helping the economy there with staffing issues and straining the capacity of some services such as clinics and schools, the New York Times reported. A Biden administration policy granted temporary protected status to hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants who left their homeland because of the ongoing violence. Some estimates say as many as 20,000 people have come to the city from Haiti, the Times said.
Last year, a migrant driving a van crashed into a school bus outside Springfield, killing a child, heightening concerns about migration among some residents. Housing costs have also risen, leading to fewer options for low-income residents of all backgrounds, the newspaper reported.
At recent council meetings, residents appealed to their elected representatives to better manage the influx of new residents. In a now-viral statement, one woman said she and her husband may have to move out of their home because of ongoing problems with “men who don’t speak English standing in my front yard and yelling at me” and throwing objects in their yard.
Some have also tried to link a woman who was recently charged in Canton, Ohio, for allegedly killing and eating a cat to the influx of migrants in Springfield, another city more than 150 miles away. She does not appear to be a Haitian migrant.
Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, has been speaking out against Haitian migrants in Ohio for months and posted about it again on Monday. “Reports now show that the pets have been kidnapped and eaten by people who do not belong in this country. Where is our border czar?” he wrote, referring to Kamala Harris.
The Trump campaign sent an email on Monday criticizing the vice president for the unrest in Springfield: “All of this will hit your city if Kamala Harris is elected in November. It doesn’t have to be this way. From day one, President Trump will launch the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history – because he always puts America and Americans FIRST.”
On Monday, Ohio’s Republican Attorney General Dave Yost announced he would use his office’s resources to “explore legal options to stop the federal government from sending unlimited numbers of migrants into Ohio communities.” He said his office would “explore all options” to provide for the migrants. Among other complaints from residents, he said the migrants were allegedly “killing wildlife to get food.”
