Donald Trump and his running mate continued to denigrate Haitian migrants in an Ohio community on Friday, fueling false claims Republicans have spread even as the city experienced bomb threats and school evacuations and local officials called for a tone down of anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“We’re going to do a massive deportation from Springfield, Ohio,” Trump said Friday during a press conference in California, adding that he might hold a campaign rally or town hall meeting in the city, claiming the migrants are “destroying the way of life.”
Ohio authorities have said there are no credible or detailed reports to support the debunked allegations made this week by both Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, that Haitian immigrants are eating pets and birds in the city’s public parks. Trump mentioned the allegations on Tuesday during a debate with his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, prompting her to laugh and call the Republican presidential candidate “extreme.”
After a bomb threat was made against city authorities, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue on Thursday called on politicians to moderate their rhetoric.
“All of these federal politicians who have put our city in a bad light need to know that they are hurting our city and that it was their words that did it,” Rue said in an interview with WSYX.
A city spokesman said one emailed threat said bombs had been placed at the homes of the Springfield mayor and other city officials. A second email said bombs had been placed at Springfield City Hall, a high school, a middle school, two elementary schools and the local branch of the state Department of Motor Vehicles, among other locations.
The buildings were evacuated and searched and cleared by authorities with bomb-sniffing dogs, officials said.
On Friday, President Joe Biden said the Haitian community is currently “under attack” and called for an end to Republican comments.
“This is just wrong. There is no place for this in America,” Biden said at a luncheon at the White House. “What he is doing has to stop. It has to stop.”
Trump suggested Friday that local authorities were not being candid about the problem because of its severity. While he said the “real threat” from immigration is at the southern border, he added: “The people of Ohio are scared.”
In a post on X on Friday, Vance claimed without evidence that Springfield had seen “a massive increase in contagious diseases, rent prices, car insurance premiums and crime.”
“Don’t let a biased media deceive you into not discussing this slowly unfolding humanitarian crisis in a small Ohio town,” he said.
Trump and his supporters used the furor over migrants in the Ohio community to focus even more attention on Trump’s main campaign issue, immigration reform, and to blame Harris for the influx of migrants into the U.S. It’s a theme Trump has repeatedly raised in all of his bids for public office.
The situation in Springfield, a city of about 60,000 people west of Columbus, began with an online post fueled by right-wing actors on social media, which Vance shared from his own X account.
“Reports say the pets were kidnapped and eaten by people who were not supposed to be in this country,” Vance posted on X on Monday.
“Where is our border czar?” Vance asked, referring to a term some have used for Harris, whom Biden tapped in 2021 to handle some immigration issues.
In a later post, Vance said his office had received “numerous inquiries from Springfield residents saying their neighbors’ pets or wildlife had been kidnapped by Haitian migrants,” adding, “It is of course possible that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”
Springfield’s Haitian population has grown in recent years. The city does not provide an exact number, but estimates that there are 15,000 immigrants living in all of Springfield County.
The city also says Haitian immigrants are in the country legally under a federal program that allows them transient residency in the country. Last month, the Biden administration granted transient residency status to about 300,000 Haitians already in the United States because conditions in Haiti are deemed too unsafe for them to return. Haiti’s government has extended a state of emergency to the entire country because of rampant gang violence.
Following Vance’s initial post, the internet exploded with AI-generated images of Trump seemingly rescuing dogs, cats and birds from danger, with Trump posting several of these memes to his own Truth Social account.
Trump repeated this claim during Tuesday’s debate.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people who came here are eating the cats,” Trump said Tuesday. “They’re eating the pets of the people who live there. And that’s what’s happening in our country. And it’s a disgrace.”
The debate moderators pointed out that city officials believe the allegations are untrue.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine — whose family runs a charity in Haiti in honor of their tardy daughter Becky, who died in a car crash — said this week he would add more funding for law enforcement and health care to an aid package the state has already provided for Springfield. DeWine said the Haitians who have moved to Ohio are generally hardworking people who love their families and want to escape violence in their homeland to get good jobs in the state.
On Wednesday, DeWine said he believed the Springfield mayor’s assessment that the allegations were unfounded, telling CBS News that the internet “can be pretty crazy sometimes.”
There were other reactions, including from the father of an 11-year-old Ohio boy who died last year when a Haitian immigrant rammed a school bus. At a Springfield City Council hearing on Tuesday, Nathan Clark implored Trump and other politicians to stop mentioning his son’s name in the immigration debate.
Democrats have taken up the situation and their Democratic National Committee sent out a fundraising email on Wednesday with the subject line “Chaos, Cats and Conspiracy.”
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Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania, Chris Megerian in Washington, Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
