Several Republican leaders — including Donald Trump’s running mate — peddled a theory Monday, which has been denied by the authorities, according to which Haitian migrants in Ohio are attacking ducks and cats to eat them.
Faced with what has become in a matter of hours a difficult to understand frenzy on social networks, the police of the city of Springfield, located in this Midwestern state, had to react in a press release.
“We want to clarify that there are no credible reports or accurate claims of pets being mistreated, injured or abused by the immigrant population,” she wrote.
The idea that Haitian undocumented immigrants were killing cats or birds for food has spread like wildfire, with billionaire Elon Musk and several Trumpist figures giving it credence. Many other Internet users have denounced a racist drift that is part of an ultra-polarized American election campaign.
“There are reports that people have had their pets taken and eaten by people who should not be in our country,” posted Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who is set to become vice president of the United States if the Republican wins the November 5 election.
-Trump saves kittens-
Even the official account of the Republicans of the otherwise very serious House Judiciary Committee joined in the movement, publishing an image, generated by artificial intelligence, of a Donald Trump protecting a duck and a kitten in his arms.
The famous conservative senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, posted a photo of two kittens with the caption: “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”
Stephen Miller, a close friend of Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, a Trumpist personality tasked with targeting young people, the radical elected representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Collins, who represents Georgia in Congress, have also provided a sounding board for this thesis.
The owner of the X network, Elon Musk, whose direct support for Donald Trump’s campaign is growing stronger day by day, published several messages to this effect on Monday. “Save them!” he wrote on a photo of a duckling and a kitten.
In a country where pets occupy a very important place in family homes, these allegations of mistreatment are likely to cause a great deal of public outcry.
Yet these snowballing anti-Haitian accusations 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 Haitians — were trying to eat her cat.
This highly dubious information was supplemented by videos that had nothing to do with Springfield, including one that supposedly showed the arrest of a visibly mentally disturbed woman accused of eating a cat.
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