The sequence is one of the most surreal of the televised debate that pitted Donald Trump against Kamala Harris on September 10. Under the hilarious gaze of his opponent, the Republican candidate states, about migrants: “In Springfield, they eat the dogs, they eat the cats, they eat the pets of the people who live there. This is what is happening in our country and it is a shame.”
The journalist and co-host of the debate, David Muir, immediately corrects: according to the municipal authorities, there is no “no credible information” confirming Mr Trump’s assertions.
In the United States, the rumor has been stirring up far-right circles for several days. Prominent pro-Trump activists, such as Elon Musk, have even made it a campaign element, presenting Donald Trump as an animal rights activist in the face of a refugee community presented as barbaric and threatening.
How did Trumpist circles arrive at such extreme accusations, with such xenophobic subtext? The World attempted to reconstruct the emergence of the rumor.
Read the analysis | Article reserved for our subscribers The orchestrated lies of Donald Trump’s campaign
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2014-2023: a context of desired immigration
- 2014 – Springfield calls for foreign labor
In the middle of Barack Obama’s second term, the city of Springfield (Ohio) is participating in the “Welcoming America” campaign. This aims to attract foreign workers to medium-sized cities hit by deindustrialization and demographic decline. This is the case of Springfield, which went from 83,000 inhabitants in 1960 to 60,000 in 2010, a symbol of downgraded cities.
- July 7, 2021 – Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is assassinated
Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is plunged into chaos after the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse. Tens of thousands of Haitians flee Port-au-Prince. Some leave the country to seek refuge in Brazil, Chile or the United States.
- January 5, 2023 – Biden grants additional residency permits to Haitians
While he is being attacked for his management of the migration crisis and the number of illegal crossings at the border with Mexico, Joe Biden is granting new residence permits to 30,000 additional people per month from four countries in crisis, including Haiti.
- 2023-2024 – Influx of Haitians Revitalizes Springfield
Springfield’s population is on the rise again, thanks to the many new Haitian residents. According to sources, their number is between 4,000 and 20,000. The city reports a total population of 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants, all origins combined, in a legal situation.
These newcomers work in automobile assembly plants, food packaging and postal distribution, and have helped revitalize the city, reports the New York TimesBut school and hospital infrastructures are undersized to cope with this increase in population.
- August 22, 2023 – Haitian Causes Fatal School Bus Crash
A school bus overturns in Ohio, killing one child and injuring 13 others, after being hit by a minivan. The driver, a legal immigrant of Haitian origin, will be sentenced to nine years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and not having a driver’s license (issued in Mexico, his was not valid in Ohio). Far-right media outlets are targeting this so-called “illegal alien, released in the United States in 2022”which has become the symbol of Joe Biden’s lax policies.
Summer 2024: News items and rumors shake Ohio, a state scrutinized by the American far right
- June 28 – Joe Biden grants protected status to Haitian refugees
Joe Biden, then still a candidate for re-election, granted 300,000 Haitians already present on American soil the temporary protected statusa temporary protection status reserved for refugees from a country in crisis or in danger.
- July 10 – Trump camp appropriates Springfield case
As Trump’s campaign staff has targeted the themes of inflation and immigration to attack Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris, Springfield has become an object of electoral campaigning. During a rally, JD Vance, his running mate, describes the city as “submerged”The far-right site Breitbart, founded by Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, a leading theorist of the large-scale use of disinformation, accuses Biden of knowingly “flooded” Springfield of Haitian migrants.
- August 8 – In Columbus, a black man walks with a goose in his hand.
On Reddit, an English-language forum with a variety of topics, a user shared on the page of the city of Columbus, the capital of Ohio, fifty kilometers from Springfield, a photo of a black man crossing the road holding an inert goose − a protected bird, whose hunting season in the state is limited to one week in September. The context of the photo is not known, nor is the identity of the person.
- August 16 – Black woman arrested for eating cat in Canton
In a sordid story, Allexis Telia Ferrell, a 27-year-old woman, is arrested on the other side of Ohio in the city of Canton, for killing and eating a domestic cat. According to the American fact-checking site Snopes, Mme Telia Ferrel has a long criminal record and is not Haitian, Canton police told Reuters.
- August 27 – YouTuber discusses Haitians eating ducks
At a heated town hall meeting, residents complain about Haitian migrants. One of them, Anthony Harris, a small local influencer who specializes in street pranks, accuses them of multiple misdeeds. “They are in the park, grabbing ducks by the neck, cutting off their heads and eating them.”he claims. He claims to have filmed these incivilities, but The World has not found any videos on the subject on his YouTube, TikTok or X pages, where he simply relays rumors.
- Early September – Rumor of killed cats appears on private Facebook group
A screenshot of a message posted in a private Facebook group, “Springfield Ohio Crime & Information,” begins circulating on social media. “Attention to all our beloved pets and those around us”we can read there. Quoting the “girlfriend of the girl” from a neighbor, the man who sent the message mentions a missing cat that was seen in front of a house inhabited by Haitians, “hung from a branch, as one would do with a deer for slaughter, and they cut it up to eat it.” The text mentions that dogs, ducks and geese are also targeted. The municipal authorities will repeatedly deny these accusations.
September 2024: Trump presented as protector of domestic animals
- September 6 – American Far Right Seizes Rumors
End Wokeness, a pro-Trump account, claims that in Springfield, since the Haitian population exploded, “Ducks and domestic animals are disappearing”. Illustrated: the photo taken in Columbus and the message from the Facebook group. This is the first time that the rumors and news stories of the summer have been assembled in a single story.
- September 8 – JD Vance picks up on the rumor of pets being eaten
Far-right influencer Ian Miles Cheong shares M’s video on Xme Telia Ferrel, the woman arrested for killing and eating a cat. « [Est-elle] on drugs?asks an Internet user. “Worse. Haitians”he replies – which is always false.
On X, Vance recalls that he has been warning for months about “the problem of undocumented Haitian migrants”, and evokes the “testimonies” denouncing animals being kidnapped and eaten. “Where is our border tsar?”he asks, repeating the pejorative nickname given by Trump to Kamala Harris.
- September 9 – A shower of images produced by artificial intelligence
Donald Trump’s supporters are generating astonishing artificial images in which the Republican candidate appears as the protector of animals in the face of the Haitian threat, sometimes riding a giant cat, sometimes protectively carrying kittens or ducklings.
- September 10 – Donald Trump makes it a TV debate item
The former president took up the rumor in the middle of the debate, adding a new piece of false information, particularly grotesque and infamous, to his already very long list of forgeries.
Watch the live | Trump-Harris debate: “Donald Trump is not the same as he was in 2020, or in 2016. He is more extreme, darker, more mired in his own lies”
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