Why Donald Trump’s lies about Haitian immigrants in Ohio are dangerous

On Sept. 10, during the first presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the issue of immigration was raised several times, both by the former president and by ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. 

Trump repeated a conspiracy theory popularized by right-wing social media users that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were killing and eating people’s pets. 

“In Springfield, 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,” Trump said, without citing any evidence.

Trump’s running mate Sen. J.D. Vance had shared the false rumor about Haitian immigrants on social media the day before.

Springfield police have said they have received no reports of pets being stolen and eaten, according to the Springfield News-Sun.

On Sept. 12, Springfield City Hall was evacuated after a bomb threat was received via email, WDTN in Springfield reported. It is unclear whether the threat was related to the conspiracy theory.

Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck responded to the false accusations about immigrants on Sept. 11: “While we are experiencing challenges related to the rapid growth of our immigrant population, these challenges are primarily due to the pace of the growth rather than the rumors being reported.”

During a press briefing on Tuesday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called Trump’s and Vance’s remarks about immigrants deeply concerning.

“You’ve got now elected officials in the Republican Party pushing yet another conspiracy theory that’s just seeking to divide people based on lies and — let’s be honest — based on an element of racism,” Kirby said, according to CNN. “I think all Americans should expect more and better from the people that they’re electing to represent them.”

This is not the first time Trump has demonized immigrants. At his rallies, he has compared immigrants to Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibal and serial killer in the film “The Silence of the Lambs.”

Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminality, law, and society at the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in immigration, said Trump is using dangerous stereotypes to stoke division.

“The misinformation isn’t just misinformation, but it leads to stereotyping, which can lead to hate crime, racial profiling, all of the collateral consequences that come along with making these analogies and pushing forward this misinformation,” Kubrin said. 

The claim that immigrants are causing a spike in crime is simply not true, Kubrin said. A 2023 study from Northwestern University found that immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than those born in the United States.

“Immigration, if anything, causes crime to go down rather than up,” Kubrin said. “Across a big body of research, there’s really no relationship between immigration and crime at the end of the day.”

Springfield’s population dropped by more than 20,000 people between 1960 and 2014, the New York Times reported, with many residents leaving after several local manufacturing plants shut down. By 2020, different companies moved in, creating thousands of new jobs. Immigrants from Haiti and elsewhere came to Springfield, willing to work. 

“They come to work every day. They don’t cause drama. They’re on time,” Jamie McGregor, chief executive of McGregor Metal, told the Times.

Gabrielle Apollon is the director of the Haitian Immigrant Rights Project and the supervising attorney of the Global Justice Clinic at the New York University School of Law. She explained that many of the Haitian immigrants in Springfield came legally under the Humanitarian Parole program that temporarily admits people to the United States for urgent humanitarian reasons or because they would provide a significant public benefit.

“I think it’s important to remember the context that people are coming from, which is that many people are fleeing due to fear,” Apollon said. “I think it’s even more distressing and saddening that people who are fleeing and trying to seek refuge and seek stability and safety are then met with this incredibly dangerous rhetoric that is being weaponized against them.”