When former President Donald Trump got on the presidential debate stage earlier this month and baselessly accused Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, of eating their neighbours’ pets, it was largely seen as the moment he lost the debate to Vice President Kamala Harris. After all, the rumours had already been proved false by local and state leaders, many of them fellow Republicans.
But instead of backtracking or apologising, Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, ramped up the attacks. In the weeks following the debate, Vance would repeat the racist lie so many times that Springfield schools received bomb threats and Haitian immigrants lived in constant fear of intimidation and assault because they suddenly had a target on their backs.
Vance and Trump went on to accuse Haitian immigrants of being responsible for an increase of crime and a housing shortage, and their lies began to spread like a nasty infection. Now officials in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Alabama are combating an uptick in threats and hatred toward the Haitian immigrants who have long been part of their communities ― much of which is spreading from unchecked rumours and misinformation online.
“It’s unsettling and it’s upsetting,” Leonce Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian immigrant and the co-founder of the Haitian Association of Indiana, told HuffPost. “You think because it’s not true, it’ll get debunked and it’ll go away. That was wishful thinking.”
‘No One Is Taking Over Anything’
Most Haitian immigrants are in the U.S. legally. There have been different periods of increased Haitian migration to the United States, including when political instability and violence forced tens of thousands of Haitians to flee their country in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2010, after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, killing up to 300,000 people, Haitians were granted Temporary Protected Status, which allows them to live and work legally in the U.S.
Then, in 2023, the Biden administration created a humanitarian parole program specifically for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, which allows people to live and work in the country as long as they have a financial sponsor and pass a background check.
Haitian immigrants once gravitated toward cities like Miami and New York, but many began leaving these expensive cities to find good jobs, affordable housing and schools for their children elsewhere.
But Trump has never been one to let facts get in the way. Springfield was in the midst of dealing with bomb threats and evacuating its schools when Trump went to the borough of Indiana, Pennsylvania, for a rally and targeted another town.
“The small, 4,000-person town of Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Charleroi. What a beautiful name. It’s not so beautiful now,” he said. “[It] has experienced a 2,000% increase in the population of Haitian migrants under Kamala Harris.”
Local leaders were confused by Trump’s claims. There are an estimated 700 to 2,000 immigrants, mostly Haitians, living in Charleroi today, which represents up to a 50% increase, nowhere near 2,000%, in the last few years.
But conservatives quickly pounced. Chaya Raichik, who runs the LibsofTikTok account that frequently distributes misinformation, posted on X (formerly Twitter) to claim that the Biden administration was busing Haitian immigrants to Charleroi to take American jobs. She included a video that she said provided evidence, but it was actually a video of Haitian workers using company-provided shuttles to get to work.
“It was shocking to us to hear the former president say [Haitian immigrants] are taking over our town,” Joseph Manning, the borough manager of Charleroi, told HuffPost. “Haitians have been here for a number of years. No one is taking over anything.”
“This is an inviting community,” he added. “We have good schools, affordable housing and people can put down roots here.”
Some conservatives are fuelling the flames of prejudice against Haitian immigrants, even if they aren’t outright disparaging them, by blaming President Joe Biden for their presence. Sean Logue, the Republican Party chair in Washington County, where Charleroi is located, has argued that U.S.-born citizens have no problems with Haitian immigrants in their community but that the supposed influx is straining local resources.
“Let me be very clear: Nobody in Washington County is saying anything negative about the Haitians,” he told NBC earlier this month.
But Logue said the federal government needed to provide his area with additional resources to help support the population.
Manning pushed back on the idea that Charleroi needed extra money for Haitian immigrants, most of whom are employed. Many Haitian migrants have also started businesses, giving a much-needed boost to towns that have suffered from job loss and population decline.
“The federal government didn’t dump anyone here. They came here legally and they are a part of our community,” Manning said. “We haven’t seen a rise in crime or any strain on our resources.”
The Social Media Spread
Thanks in part to Trump’s and Vance’s claims, residents in towns across the country are feeling more emboldened to make racist allegations.
The rumours about Springfield began when Erika Lee, a Springfield resident, posted on Facebook that a neighbour’s cat had gone missing and said the neighbour suspected her pet had been attacked by a Haitian immigrant.
Kimberly Newton, the neighbour who told Lee this story, later said Lee “misstated” the claim in her Facebook post and that Newton herself had heard the story third-hand. Lee has since said she regrets the post and did not intend to spread the racist rumour. (It turns out that a Springfield cat did go missing, but its owner found her pet hiding in her basement a few days after filing a police report.)
But now right-wing Facebook groups for small towns with a significant number of Haitians are now swamped in misinformation, rumours and outright racism.
On social media, claims that Biden purposefully put Haitian immigrants in these previously all-white communities permeate. Posters claim that the newcomers are taking jobs, committing crimes and spreading diseases — all while receiving government benefits that native-born Americans couldn’t receive, even though immigrants do not qualify for most public assistance.
“I have gotten phone calls from friends in Evansville and Washington,” Jean-Baptiste said about two towns in Indiana that have seen an increase in Haitian immigrants in recent years. “They’re worried, and they’re feeling all this pressure.”
“These people are so vulnerable,” he added. “They didn’t ask for any of this.”
Jean-Baptiste said Trump’s comments about Springfield simply gave people permission to vocalise the prejudiced beliefs they already had about Haitian immigrants.
“For some people, this was like throwing red meat in front of them,” he said. “It feeds their soul.”
Kayla Blakeslee, a right-wing radio host in Logansport, Indiana, began a series on her show called “Is Logansport the New Springfield?” The comments section of her Facebook page has become flooded with allegations that there are no jobs, no food, and no access to health care because of Haitian immigrants and that it was all a part of a nefarious plot of the Biden administration.
Chris Martin, the mayor of Logansport, responded to HuffPost’s request for comment by emailing a lengthy public statement he had previously made.
In it, he said no government had asked the town to house a minority group, local funds weren’t being spent on “one minority group” and that the “circumstances are being misrepresented.”
“We are a diverse community and have been for a very long time,” he said in the statement. “Our community is aware of a large number of immigrants. We have one of the best collaboration of leaders in the state working on this and we are doing our jobs to the best of our ability.”
“I will be formally asking the federal government to assist our community. I’m asking that citizens please refrain from false statements, especially those that threaten the lives of others.”
Assuming The Worst
Hundreds of miles away in Alabama, officials in the 12,000-person town of Sylacauga were dealing with residents who were suddenly demanding their leaders answer questions about busing in immigrants and who was “watching” them.
County officials estimate there are 60 Haitian immigrants in the town.
“I want to welcome anyone to Sylacauga that wants to come to Sylacauga,” City Council President Tiffany Nix said at a contentious council meeting. “If you’re here stimulating our economy, thank you. … If people aren’t breaking the law, they’re not causing any problems, I don’t see what the issue is.”
But that didn’t stop residents from assuming the worst about the immigrants who settled in Alabama.
“Do we know where the individuals we’re discussing are coming from?” one unnamed resident asked. “Where their point of origin is? Because you’re treating them like lawful U.S. citizens, which they are not.”
Nix ended the meeting after just 20 minutes, later saying she felt the questions were getting aggressive.
In another Alabama town, Fairhope, officials were accused of gaslighting residents when they announced at a city council meeting that despite the rumors they were seeing online, there was no evidence that the town of 25,000 was about to see a surge of Haitian immigrants.
Council member Kevin Boone cautioned residents against believing everything they saw on social media. “You won’t go far believing that junk,” he said.
But Fairhope resident Jonathan Cutwright pushed back.
“Don’t make fun of people who are here,” he said, according to AL.com. “You know what is going on in Ohio. We are here, and I think most of us, we don’t want that to happen here.”
There doesn’t appear to be any end in sight to the deluge of misinformation surrounding Haitian immigrants. Anti-Haitian sentiment is now widespread among the conservative movement, from the two men who might next be in charge of the country to everyday voters.
Trump, who has always been an extremist on immigration, has managed to up the ante for his third presidential run. At a news conference in California, he said he will begin his mass deportation plan in Springfield.
Then, at a Pennsylvania rally, he asked the crowd if they thought Springfield would ever be the same. “You have to get them the hell out,” he said of the Haitians.
His supporters responded by chanting: “Send them back! Send them back!”
“When you’re in Haiti and you think about going to the U.S., you don’t think that you’d ever be treated this way,” Jean-Baptiste said. “It’s such an awful feeling for people who thought that being in the U.S. was the best thing that could ever happen to them.”