“The claim is false, but that didn’t stop Trump from spreading it during Tuesday evening’s presidential debate, declaring that “the people that came in” are “eating the pets of the people that live” in Springfield, Ohio.
The strange idea that Ohio is home to pet kidnappers and eaters was popularized in part by that state’s senator, JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. On Monday morning, Vance posted on X the false claim that “reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” In the same tweet, he claimed that “Haitian illegal immigrants” are “causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.”
The claim has caught fire among the GOP and has now made it all the way to the party’s leader.
For the record, there is no evidence that any Haitian immigrant ate a cat in Springfield, Ohio, or anywhere else in the United States, for that matter. But the lack of factual evidence hasn’t stopped the GOP from pushing the nativist narrative, which seems designed to play off bigotry and suspicion against the mostly Black population of Haitian immigrants.
More than 300,000 previously unauthorized migrants from Haiti received temporary protected status in June, which means these Haitian immigrants are now — despite Vance’s Monday suggestion otherwise — legally present in the United States. Still, Trump and other Republicans’ attacks on these immigrants come at a moment when more Americans have grown skeptical of immigration.
Shortly after President Joe Biden took office, the United States experienced a surge of migrants at its southern border — much of it fueled by unrest in several Caribbean and Latin American nations following the Covid-19 pandemic. Republicans used this wave of migration to attack Biden’s border policies, and to claim there was a crisis at the border. Meanwhile, busing efforts by Republican leaders in border states sent large groups of migrants to cities and towns across the country, putting many Americans face to face with migrants for the first time.
All of this comes amid a competitive 2024 presidential race, where both candidates have rushed to frame themselves as tough on immigration. Trump has long campaigned on restricting immigration, while Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted a strict border security bill that she supports — and which Trump pushed his fellow Republicans to kill.
These factors — perhaps most of all the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment — probably explain why a sitting senator felt it was wise to share a meme claiming that if Americans don’t vote for former President Donald Trump, immigrants will eat your cats, and why a former president repeated the vile claim during a national debate.”