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On Friday morning, at least three schools in Springfield, Ohio — a city at the center of racist fear-mongering about Haitian immigrants — were hit with a bomb threat, forcing two to evacuate and one to be closed. This comes just one day after Springfield City Hall was evacuated after someone claiming to be a resident complained about immigration because of a bomb threat. Residents of Haiti have said they fear for their children’s schooling and property crimes.
The threat of violence looming over the region is the result of low-brow lies by leading Republicans about Haitian immigrants stealing pets and geese for food. The argument has managed to find its way from the reaches of the internet to the discussion stage of the presidential election. There is no evidence that this ever happened 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 who live there,” former President Donald Trump shouted during his opening remarks at Tuesday night’s debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, as tens of millions of viewers watched.
One thing is clear: if this continues, someone could get hurt – or worse. And yet, even as threats and evacuations mount, Trump and GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance refuse to call for peace. In fact, they double. About 24 hours after Springfield City Hall was locked down due to a bomb threat, Vance posted on social media about immigration in Springfield, saying his followers shouldn’t “be shamed by the biased media into not discussing this slow-moving humanitarian crisis in small-town Ohio.”
Crisis is hard to find. In recent years, as many as 20,000 Haitian immigrants have settled in Springfield, while local officials touted the city as offering good, steady jobs and affordable housing. Most of them are in the country legally, and many have temporary protected status, a designation that allows immigrants to escape violence in their home countries.
Although many rabid right-wing racists have argued that the city is being destroyed by the influx of immigrants, the presence of new residents has helped revitalize the city, bolstering the economy and filling the church pews. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has pledged $2.5 million to the city to help with the growing pains caused by the population explosion.
What should be a success story about how immigrants helped save a dying industrial city has been reduced to a talking point for right-wing politicians to spew hate.
The rumor mill was already in motion on Monday, when Vance posted about the lie on social media.
“Reports now show that people who should not be in this country have kidnapped and eaten their pets. Where’s our border czar?” he wrote, referring to Harris. The next day, he admitted it was just a rumor — but said people should promote it anyway.
“Keep the cat memes coming,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, an alarming number of Republican elected officials, including Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, have gleefully joined in perpetuating the lie. Trump repeated the bogus claim in Arizona on Thursday night, and in California on Friday, he said that Haitian immigrants are “destroying” the way of life of Springfield residents. He also promised mass deportations from the city, saying “we will bring them back to Venezuela,” referring to the wrong country. Trump’s persistence in making these claims indicates that they will likely become part of his rally repertoire, which often includes references to the fictional cannibal Hannibal Lecter and other violent images of immigrants.
The Republican Party’s anti-immigrant organization came to the fore in the 2016 nomination of Trump, who began his campaign that year by claiming that Mexican immigrants are “rapists.” He promised to build a wall to keep out migrants, and one of his first acts as president was to ban travelers from predominantly Muslim countries.
But Trump, the GOP, and America as a whole have long held a special hatred for immigrants from Haiti in particular. Could it be because that nation became the first independent black republic after successfully defeating its French colonizers?
Trump famously called Haiti a “shithole country” in 2018. And Vance hasn’t limited his social media posts to pet peeves, but has also suggested that immigrants are spreading disease in Springfield (a claim made by Nazi Germany Jews) and increasing crime.
Anyone with a conscience knows that this kind of language inspires violence all the time.
This wouldn’t even be the first time Trump’s dangerous lies led to violence. After losing the 2020 presidential election, he spent the months between his defeat and Democrat Joe Biden’s inauguration infuriating his supporters with baseless allegations of voter fraud. It prompted his most ardent followers to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, killing several people.
Trump and Vance are currently setting the stage for a similar outcome — and this time, his lies are terrorizing Vance’s own voters. Now that children are being forced to skip school in his state, he has an obligation to retract claims he has already admitted may be false and apologize.
Otherwise, if this ends in violence, Trump, Vance, and everyone else involved in this racist pileup will have blood on their hands.
