The Making of the President 2024: Haitians and Cats
Early in his first debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, and shortly after Harris mocked Donald Trump's rallies as being so filled with fictions and fringe theories that attendees leave early, Trump responded by trying to pivot back to the subject under discussion, immigration. His response was surprising to many and unexpected. Trump said:
“A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it. In Springfield [Ohio], they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating - they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Mr. Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, have doubled down on these claims on the campaign trail since the debate. These rumors stems from viral social media posts that have spread as Mr. Vance and others have sought to incite fears about the growing Haitian population in Springfield, even though many Haitian members of the community are living and working in the United States legally.
Fact checked on these claims, local officials have found no evidence, credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed by Haitian residents. When David Muir, a debate moderator, pressed Trump about the lack of evidence to support this claim, Trump said he had gotten his information from “the people on television saying my dog was taken and used for food.”
During the debate, Harris openly laughed at Trump’s statements, which she termed as “extreme.” She said this is one of the reasons that she has the endorsements of over 200 Republicans.
Republican Vice-Presidential nominee J. D. Vance first made this accusation against Haitian immigrants, telling his audience, “it’s coming to your city next.” Vance appeared to backtrack later in a social media post, saying his office had “received many inquiries” about the false claims. But he added that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”
Social media platforms have responded with memes and AI-generated images of cats in support of Mr. Trump.
The sudden influx of approximately 20 Haitian immigrants into Springfield, a community of approximately 58,000 people, located between Columbus and Dayton, has been controversial. On the one hand, many job shortages have been filled in the community, and some community leaders say that this has helped revitalize the city. Others, like Vance, complain that it has put pressure on local housing, schools and hospitals.
In a radio interview, Donald Trump Jr. said, "“You look at Haiti, you look at the demographic makeup, you look at the average I.Q. - if you import the third world into your country, you’re going to become the third world. That’s just basic. It’s not racist. It’s just fact.”
Following the debate, there were a number of bomb threats in Springfield, which caused the city to close its City Hall, schools and a motor vehicles office.
An angry President Joe Biden said that Haitian immigrants were “under attack in our country right now. ” He said of Trump's claims, “It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America. This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop.”
Mary Estimé-Irvin, chairperson for the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network, a nonpartisan group for Haitian American politicians, said of Mr. Trump’s comments about Haitians and their intelligence, “That is so sad. The campaign is desperate.” She added that most Haitians in Springfield and elsewhere in the United States are in the country legally, many having received temporary protected status from the Biden administration under a program started by President George W. Bush for citizens of countries in turmoil.
One claims about Springfield included a photograph of a black man walking across the street carrying what appeared to be a dead Canada goose. The image spread widely online. Many of the posts falsely described the man as a Haitian resident of Springfield. In fact, the photo was taken in Columbus, Ohio, 40 miles east of Springfield, on July 28. The photographer, a 55-year-old man, was contacted on Monday by a representative of Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources who was trying to verify its authenticity. In a phone interview, the photographer said he regretted posting the photo after seeing it used to denigrate migrants.
Oblivious to the danger that spreading these accusations poses to Haitian immigrants, Vance has continued to press the issue. He told CNN, “I’ve been trying to talk about the problems in Springfield for months. The American media totally ignored this stuff 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.” When the CNN host, Dana Bash, noted that he had used the word “creating,” Mr. Vance replied, “I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”
Vance expressed no regret about any of his statements and responded testily to mentions of the bomb threats.
“I want whoever made these threats to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” he told Margaret Brennan of CBS. “But we don’t believe, Margaret, in a heckler’s veto in this country. I think that we should ignore these ridiculous psychopaths who are threatening violence on a small Ohio town and focus on the fact that we have a vice president who’s not doing her job in protecting that small Ohio town.”
On CNN, Ms. Bash asked what Mr. Vance, as a senator from Ohio, had done to help Springfield. “Instead of saying things that are wrong and actually causing the hospitals, the schools, the government buildings to be evacuated because of bomb threats, because of the cats and dogs thing, why not actually be constructive in helping to better integrate them into the community?” Vance became defensive and called the question “more appropriate for a Democratic propagandist than it is for an American journalist.” He denied that his and Mr. Trump’s words had any connection to the threats that immediately followed them.
Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, had been rebutting these rumors. In an interview on ABC News. DeWine said the claim that migrants were eating pets was “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.” The governor said that while there had been some “challenges” involved in accommodating thousands of migrants, they were there legally and had benefited Springfield economically.
The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, Rob Rue, said a bomb threat that led to the evacuation of City Hall and numerous buildings “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.” Rue said, "Springfield is a community that needs help,” adding that national leaders should provide that help and not “hurt a community like, unfortunately, we have seen over the last couple of days.”