Former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance have made anti-immigrant hate the centrepiece of their campaign for the White House, and that campaign stooped to a new low Monday.
On X, formerly Twitter, Vance amplified bogus “reports” that “people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
First of all, the claim is false: There are no credible reports that “people who shouldn’t be in this country” are eating pets. It bubbled up from the depths of right-wing internet spaces directly to the X account for the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee.
Second, the false claim is part of Trump and his supporters’ years-long pattern of painting immigrants with a broad brush as rapists and murders, even invoking the fictional film ”Gangs of New York″ and the fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter — whom Trump has invoked nonstop in recent months to describe immigrants.
These claims about immigrants being especially prone to crime run counter to all available data, which show that immigrants break fewer laws than Americans who were born here.
The lies are all part of Trump and Vance’s justification for pitching a “mass deportation” of millions of people, which by their and their advisers’ own admission would involve a “bloody” police state and huge processing camps.
What Is Vance Actually Talking About?
The Trump campaign did not respond to HuffPost’s questions. But it appears Vance was responding to a collection of rumours and baseless internet posts related to immigrants living in Ohio — all breathlessly amplified by Trump-aligned social media accounts.
In one instance, a social media post purportedly from Springfield, Ohio, that’s been making the rounds includes the claim that the unnamed poster’s neighbour’s daughter’s friend — say that five times fast — lost her cat, then later found the cat hanging from a tree outside her Haitian neighbour’s house. It’s impossible to verify such a fourth-hand claim, but no news stories indicate anything similar happening recently. And Springfield police told the News-Sun Monday that while they were aware of the rumour on social media, they hadn’t actually received any reports related to pets being stolen and eaten.
Another viral post shows a man at a Springfield city commission meeting — Anthony Harris, a local self-identified “social media influencer” — claiming Haitian immigrants “are in the park, grabbing up ducks by the neck, and cutting the heads off and walking off with them, and eating them.” Harris did not return a message seeking comment about evidence for his claim.
The posts have been amplified by far-reaching far-right X accounts including @EndWokeness, which has 2.9 million followers on the app, and Charlie Kirk, whose organization, Turning Point Action, is helping to run the Trump campaign’s get-out-the-vote operation. “Apparently, people’s pet cats are being eaten,” Elon Musk, X owner and Trump endorser, responded to Kirk’s post about the fourth-hand claim of the missing cat.
Springfield, Ohio, has been a hub for immigrants, and particularly Haitian immigrants, in recent years — contrary to Vance’s tweet, they are here legally — but there’s no evidence at all for these viral claims.
In fact, Springfield’s deputy director of public safety and operations, Jason Via, dispelled the rumors to NPR last month.
“I think it’s sad that some people are using this as an opportunity to spread hate or spread fear,” Via told NPR. “We get these reports ‘the Haitians are killing ducks in a lot of our parks’ or ‘the Haitians are eating vegetables right out of the aisle at the grocery store.’ And we haven’t really seen any of that. It’s really frustrating. As a community, it’s not helpful as we try to move forward.”
The same story quoted Denice D. Williams, president of Springfield’s NAACP, who said she wasn’t surprised by the anti-immigrant rumors, given she’d heard similar things as a child.
“I’m not surprised, I’m disgusted. I grew up in an all-white neighbourhood, so they were telling us, ‘go back to where you came from.’ They would trash our yard. I’m 70 years old, and I’m still hearing ‘send them back.’”
The fact that the rumours are baseless hasn’t stopped prominent Republicans from sharing posts apparently based on the stories — including from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, former Trump adviser Stephen Miller and Senator Ted Cruz:
American Woman Faces Charge For Allegedly Killing Cat
A separate story does involve alleged animal cruelty to a pet cat — but no apparent connection to immigration.
Nearly three hours away from Springfield, in Canton, Ohio, Allexis Telia Ferrell, 27, faces one charge of causing serious physical harm to a companion animal, a fifth-degree felony. Last month, police accused Ferrell of killing a cat, and also eating it “in a residential area in front of multiple people,” according to local outlet WLBT. Edited body camera footage of Ferrell’s arrest has circulated online, including from the popular far-right Malaysia-based commentator Ian Miles Cheong.
“Dr*gs?” one person commented under Cheong’s video. “Worse. Haitians,” Cheong replied, falsely.
A spokesperson for the Canton Police Department, Lt. Dennis Garren, shared records related to Ferrell’s arrest with HuffPost. None of them mentioned the defendant’s citizenship status, though they did detail the grisly allegations against her. One offense report stated: “The Defendant did torture, kill, and eat a cat in a residental [sic] area in front multiple people.” An investigative report said Ferrell was arrested with blood on her feet and hands and “fur on her lips.” Body camera footage from Aug. 16 did not appear to show any fur on Ferrell’s lips — but it did show a dazed-looking Ferrell being arrested, and saying “I don’t know” when asked, “Why’d you kill it?” She did not respond when asked, “Did you eat it?”
Garren added, responding to a question about whether there had been any other animal cruelty reports recently: “We have no additional reports in the recent weeks.” Regarding Ferrell’s citizenship status, Garren said, “I could not confirm if she is but I haven’t heard that she is not a U.S. citizen.”
Ferrell has pleaded not guilty, and is currently in custody, awaiting a competency hearing on October 15, according to online court records out of Stark County.
Stephen Kandel, Ferrell’s court-appointed attorney, told HuffPost that as far as he knew, Ferrell was a U.S. citizen. Separately, public records indicate Ferrell is a registered voter who has been living in the United States for most of her life, if not all of it. Kandel declined to discuss the specifics of Ferrell’s case because it is pending.
Kandel said he wasn’t aware of any other instances of people’s pets being hurt in Ohio recently. And Vance’s tweet “is just not applicable in this case, with regards to Allexis,” he said.
“She’s a nice girl, she just has some mental health issues,” Kandel added, referring to Ferrell.