What to know about the false rumor targeting Haitian immigrants in Ohio town

(CNN) — Republicans including vice presidential candidate JD Vance fueled a firestorm of misinformation this month when they spread false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, injecting the town with chaos.

The claims, which have been widely discredited, have made their way onto the national stage. Former President Donald Trump further pushed the false narrative during his first debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, when he falsely claimed, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats.”

Vance, meanwhile, has only doubled down, defending the baseless rumor on Sunday.

“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,” the Ohio senator told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

Here is how the misinformation spread from a Facebook post to national news in a matter of days, and how officials are looking to lower the temperature as Springfield deals with the fallout.

How did the rumors start?

A post in a Springfield Facebook group recently claimed that a neighbor’s daughter’s friend found their missing cat hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home and that the cat was being prepared to be eaten, according to the Springfield News-Sun. Those rumors were picked up by conservative media and then spread on X, where they gained widespread traction on September 9, CNN reported at the time.

“President Trump will deport migrants who eat pets,” a Trump campaign account posted to X. “Kamala Harris will send them to your town next. Make your choice, America.”

GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas posted a meme showing two kittens embracing, with text overlaid on the image reading, “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”

And Vance posted a video of himself discussing migration to Ohio at a recent hearing. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” he said in the video.

Some accounts posted body-worn camera footage from an incident they said bolstered their claims. But that footage was shot in Canton, Ohio, which is more than 170 miles away from Springfield, and as Reuters reported, the woman in the video is not a Haitian immigrant.

One of the first Springfield residents to share the misinformation told NBC News on Friday that she regretted sharing the Facebook post about a neighbor’s cat that went missing.

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Erika Lee told the news network, adding later, “If I was in the Haitians’ position, I’d be terrified, too, worried that somebody’s going to come after me because they think I’m hurting something that they love.”

Ohio officials dismiss claim as false

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue has repeatedly denied the rumors, telling CNN on Sunday that that his city is going through “a very difficult time,” adding that city officials, including city commissioners, had received threats over consecutive days.

“We have been shined under a spotlight that is so bright that it’s hard to see some of the things that we actually need to be focusing on, and that’s been difficult for sure,” the mayor told Bash on “State of the Union,” adding that “we’re concerned about the security in our community, and we’re focused on that right now.”

The fallout has been widespread in the small city, with threats forcing lockdowns or closures at Springfield’s City Hall, schools, colleges and hospitals.

Gov. Mike DeWine is deploying the Ohio State Highway Patrol to monitor schools in Springfield after they received 33 bomb threats since late last week. The threats so far haven’t had “any validity at all,” the Republican governor said in a news conference Monday afternoon.

Rue said he has not heard from Vance directly, “and that’s fine,” but said the Ohio senator and others propagating the rumors should know that authorities in Springfield “are telling the truth to our community.”

“We are not ignoring the strain that the immigration has put in our community, but we are here to try to put our arms around it and to work as peaceably as possible to have our community secure and safe and thriving,” Rue said.

DeWine flatly denied the rumor on Sunday. “No. Absolutely not,” DeWine said on ABC’s “This Week” when asked whether he’d seen any evidence of immigrants eating pets.

Haitian immigrants in Springfield

The city of Springfield notes on its website that approximately 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants live in Clark County — which has a population of 136,000 — and that Haitian immigrants are there legally as part of a parole program that allows citizens and lawful residents to apply to have their family members from Haiti come to the United States.

But the spread of misinformation has tapped into real concerns from locals about the city’s growing pains, people living in the area told CNN.

In a July letter addressed to Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tim Scott of South Carolina, City Manager Bryan Heck said that housing shortages have presented a “crisis” for the city as far back as 2018 and that the city’s expanding population has added stress.

According to the city, immigrants with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, “are legally qualified to receive financial assistance, health and nutrition services, employment and education services and housing services. Since immigrants granted TPS must apply for an Employment Authorization Document that can take up to several months to receive, they may need assistance until they can legally seek employment.”

Programs such as TPS and, more recently, humanitarian parole, were introduced in response to natural disasters and political instability and violence in the Caribbean nation.

Haitian workers play a significant role in Springfield’s economy, filling much-needed jobs, the city says.

DeWine acknowledged the city was having some issues adjusting to the influx of mostly Haitian immigrants through the federal immigration program, but he said they were working to deal with the issues.

“When you go from a population of 58,000,” he said, referring to the size of Springfield, “and add 15,000 people onto that, you’re going to have some challenges and some problems.”

But the governor said that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are “positive influences” on the community and that any comment otherwise “is hurtful and is not helpful to the city of Springfield and the people of Springfield.”

Trump, Vance continue to stoke the rumors

Vance said last week it was possible the claim about Haitian immigrants might not be true but encouraged his followers to continue posting “cat memes.”

“In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false,” Vance posted on X on September 10, adding, “Spare your outrage for your fellow citizens suffering under Kamala Harris’s policies.”

In a follow-up post, Vance said, “In short, don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing.”

Trump, meanwhile, has taken the falsehoods on the campaign trail to drive home his message on immigration after repeating the false claim during the debate last week.

On Friday, the former president promised that if elected president, “we will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio, large deportations. We’re going to get these people out. We’re bringing them back to Venezuela.”

Speaking in Las Vegas on Saturday, Trump told reporters that while he didn’t know of any bomb threats in Springfield, “I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened. Springfield was this beautiful town, and now they’re going through hell.”

CNN’s Kit Maher, Eric Bradner, Caitlin Stephen Hu, Omar Jimenez, Michael Williams, Taylor Romine and Chris Boyette contributed to this report.

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