Mackenso Roseme, a Haitian immigrant to the United States, learned that his city’s town hall was closed after a bomb threat confirmed the tension in Springfield Thursday.
He then left his job at an Amazon warehouse in nearby Dayton and drove to his child’s elementary school.
There he came across a sign in English, Spanish and Creole that said the students had been evacuated to the high school.
“When I came here (to Springfield), I had no doubts. But the current moment, really, is worrying,” he confided to AFP, in reference to the unfounded rumors relayed by Donald Trump against Haitian migrants who live in the town.
“I’m a little stressed. I think something might happen,” he adds.
Springfield authorities announced that they had ordered the evacuation of the city hall on Thursday. “Due to a bomb threat sent to various Springfield agencies today, the city hall is closed,” reads the official Facebook account of this small city of 60,000 inhabitants located in the state of Ohio. Of this population, some 15,000 migrants have arrived in recent years, including a significant number of Haitians.
– “Racist roots” –
Since Monday, Springfield has been at the heart of a heated controversy, launched by the radical right and fanned by Donald Trump, who falsely claims that these Haitian migrants there are attacking dogs and cats to eat them.
Although the local police have categorically denied this theory, as have many information verification media including AFP, the Republican candidate has repeated it several times since Tuesday, when he had already spread it during his televised debate against Kamala Harris.
The White House, for its part, denounced a “conspiracy theory (…) with racist roots”.
“This kind of talk, this kind of misinformation, is dangerous because people will believe it, no matter how absurd and stupid it is, and they may react in a way that causes injuries,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the executive branch’s National Security Council, said Tuesday.
On Thursday, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre hammered the point home: “These filthy remarks (…) put lives in danger” in “the communities that are targeted by these attempts to smear them.”
Meanwhile, on the ground in Springfield, initiatives are trying to ease the tension and confusion. A group of religious people from different ethnic backgrounds called a news conference Thursday. They showed themselves praying together, hands clasped, and called for unity.
– Solidarity clergy –
“There were things that happened today, threats of violence,” Wes Babian, a former pastor at a local Baptist church, told AFP. “That prompted us to call on the clergy to come together to express our support for the Haitian people and our concern for their well-being.”
The anti-Haitian accusations in Springfield appear to have originated from a simple Facebook post, purportedly from a Springfield resident, who himself quoted a friend of his neighbor’s daughter as saying that her own neighbors — presumably Haitian — were trying to eat her cat.
Despite the highly dubious nature of the rumor, Donald Trump and his close associates have so far shown no willingness to back down from their claims.
“Ohio is flooded with undocumented migrants, most from Haiti, who are taking over cities and towns at an unprecedented rate,” the Republican candidate wrote on his Truth Social network on Thursday.
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