Leaders of a Haitian nonprofit group in Springfield, Ohio, filed a criminal affidavit on Tuesday against former President Donald Trump and his Republican running mate, Senator JD Vance, seeking their arrest over racist lies that Haitian immigrants were “eating the cats, dogs, and pets of people” in the community.
The affidavit, filed in Clark County Municipal Court by Guerline Jozef, co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, alleged the former president and the Ohio senator had violated criminal laws including disrupting public services, making false alarms, complicity, aggravated menacing and telecommunications harassment and complicity.
Under Ohio law, private citizens are permitted to file an affidavit asking the courts to find probable cause that alleged offenders have committed a crime.
Subodh Chandra, Jozef’s lead counsel, told HuffPost on Tuesday that the organisation was “tired of waiting for the prosecutor to act to vindicate the rule of law and protect the community.”
He added that Trump and Vance “know exactly what they’re doing” when they spread the lies, calling their actions “unapologetic serial criminal activity.”
“I mean, they know what the power of their words is, they know that they have a megaphone and a platform that is so powerful that if they are irresponsible with it, it can wreak havoc,” Chandra said. “They know it, and they’ve seen it as a result of what they’ve done here, and yet they double down and triple down and quadruple down.”
In a statement to HuffPost on Tuesday, Steven Cheung, the communications director for Trump’s campaign, responded to the affidavit with yet another lie.
“President Trump is rightfully highlighting the failed immigration system that Kamala Harris has overseen, bringing thousands of illegal immigrants pouring into communities like Springfield and many others across the country,” Cheung said. “President Trump will secure our border and put an end to the chaos that illegal immigration brings to our communities.”
The city has said that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield live there legally.
Now that the affidavit has been filed, Chandra said a judge must determine if there’s probable cause to support the charges and issue arrest warrants or refer the case to the prosecutor’s office for further investigation.
The Haitian Bridge Alliance claimed in the affidavit that criminal charges are warranted because of the “harmful lies repeatedly spewed” by Trump and Vance and the serious effects on the community.
“HBA is non-partisan, this is not about one candidate or political party. This is about confronting white supremacy, anti-Black rhetoric, and hate speech that seems to be a constant in US politics and that continues to cause suffering. No one is above the law,” Jozef said in a statement announcing the charges.
Vance earlier this month spread the racist — and later debunked — rumour that the pets of residents in Springfield have been “abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
A day later, during the September 10 presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump repeated Vance’s baseless claim.
“This is about confronting white supremacy, anti-Black rhetoric, and hate speech that seems to be a constant in US politics and that continues to cause suffering.”
- Guerline Jozef, co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
The former president was quickly fact-checked by ABC News moderator David Muir, who said the city manager of Springfield told ABC there was no evidence of pets being kidnapped and eaten by immigrants.
Since then, the Haitian Bridge Alliance have attributed more than 30 “widespread bomb and other threats” against their community as Trump and Vance have continued to spread the racist lie.
Last week, while speaking in California, Trump vowed to begin mass deportations in Springfield, in spite of the Haitians’ legal status, if he’s elected president in November.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump said. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora, [Colorado].”
The affidavit alleges that Trump’s and Vance’s remarks are criminal acts and “do not color within the lines of the First Amendment.”
The affidavit argued that the two knowingly caused “others to falsely believe that members of the Springfield, Ohio Haitian community would cause serious physical harm to the person or property of others within the community.”
Several Haitian immigrants who live in Springfield have said that before Trump’s and Vance’s comments, people in the city had been “welcoming, nice, and helpful” to them, the affidavit said.
However, now they are “receiving hostile comments and feel like they are constantly being watched by people at work and in their neighborhoods,” according to the affidavit.
“Many of the people we have spoken to left Haiti because they suffered politically motivated violence and persecution, and they have reported feeling scared for their physical safety all the time because of Trump and Vance’s comments,” the document said. “They are terrified that, if Trump and Vance win the elections, they will be harassed even more and even become victims of violence.”
Some Haitians in Springfield have stopped going to work, going out at night or asking for directions, and some have left Ohio, according to the affidavit. Springfield officials also said that City Hall had received a bomb threat, prompting evacuation and a law enforcement response.
“If it were anyone else who had wreaked the kind of havoc that Trump and Vance have wreaked with their persistent and relentless falsehoods, namely, schools, colleges and City Hall being evacuated and closed, threats against the mayor and his family, and 33 bomb threats, you can be assured that that person would have been arrested by now,” Chandra said.
Despite multiple reports disproving the racist claim, Vance has justified his stance and attacked the media for refuting it.
“I wish the American media was half as interested in the stress on the local schools, the stress on the hospitals and unaffordable housing as they are in debunking a story that comes from the residents of Springfield,” Vance said at a rally in North Carolina on Monday.