Ohio's Haitian immigrants afraid after Donald Trump's false pet-eating claims

Small city in Ohio becomes focal point for anti-immigration rage after Donald Trump claimed illegal immigrants were stealing and eating people's pets

A man carries an AI-generated image of former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump carrying cats away from Haitian immigrants, a reference to falsehoods spread about Springfield, Ohio, during a campaign rally for Trump at the Tucson Music Hall in Tucson, Arizona, September 12, 2024. (Photo by Rebecca NOBLE / AFP)Show less

On South Limestone Street in Springfield, Ohio, a new batch of cafes, bakeries and shops have opened. On nearby footpaths, a new language – Haitian Creole – is heard increasingly. Nearby neighbourhoods that were had been silent for decades are now bustling.

This unassuming area in the relatively small city has become a focal point for anti-immigration rage after Republican nominee Donald Trump claimed during the presidential debate on Tuesday night that immigrants in Springfield were stealing and eating people's pets.

“In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats,” the former president claimed. “They're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

For Patrick Joseph, a Haitian interpreter who came to Springfield in 2021, the false assertions felt like a gut punch.

“We see the stuff people are writing on social media and we know it is untrue, but it affects us,” he says. “Anything they say that a Haitian did, about our culture, that affects us a lot,” he says. “It makes me worried, to be honest.”

The pet-eating myth was quickly debunked, with local police and the city’s mayor denying they had received credible reports that any such an event had occurred. The rumours may stem from an incident that occurred in Canton, Ohio, last month that involved an American woman with mental health issues who was arrested for killing and eating a cat.

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More misinformation, involving a photo of a person holding a dead goose that was claimed in social media posts to have been a Haitian in Springfield, was actually taken in Columbus, Ohio, in July.

But white supremacists, X chief executive Elon Musk and Republican vice presidential candidate and Ohio native JD Vance have latched on to the idea, falsely claiming on social media that illegal Haitian immigrants in Springfield were responsible.

For the most part, Haitians in Springfield, most of whom have come to the US legally through receiving Temporary Protected Status, chose the city for its cheap housing and plentiful unskilled jobs, many of which do not require advanced English skills.

Many live 10 or more to a house, splitting the cost of rent, so that they can save money and send more back to family in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

In a town where derelict homes and abandoned shopfronts had been a growing part of the urban tapestry for decades, the arrival of Haitian and other immigrants to work in local factories, packaging plants and produce facilities from 2017 were, for some, a welcome change.

Caribbean shops, cafes and restaurants catering to the rapidly growing Haitian community quickly sprang up. Churches and Haitian Creole-language radio stations quickly followed.

In 2023, Springfield held its first Haitian Flag Day, and city leaders and Haitians gathered to celebrate their homeland, which has been mired in turmoil and brutal gang violence since its former president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in July 2021.

But the raising of the Haitian flag alongside that of the US drew the ire of some long-time Springfield residents.

Then on the first day of school in August 2023, a boy, 11, was killed when his school bus crashed after swerving to avoid an oncoming car driven by a Haitian immigrant who had no Ohio driver’s licence. The man was sentenced to between nine and 13.5 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide last May.

Springfield had been losing population and struggling with urban decline for decades. Stephen Starr / The National

'There are two things Haitians want - safety and a job,' says Margery Koveleski. Stephen Starr / The National

The owners of some Haitian shops in Springfield, such as this one on South Limestone Street, prefer not to advertise with public signs.

Haitians say the First Evangelical Haitian Church in Springfield was attacked and broken into twice last year. Stephen Starr / The National

'They came here with only their savings,' says Casey Rollins, the executive director of St Vincent de Paul in Springfield. Stephen Starr / The National

A man carries an AI-generated image of Donald Trump carrying cats away from Haitian immigrants, a reference to falsehoods spread about Springfield, Ohio, during a campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona. AFP

Welcome to Springfield? A mural on a wall in the Ohio city, home to a large Haitian community. Reuters

Despite the tragedy, the boy’s family has spent the past year calling for politicians and Springfield residents to refrain from using their child’s death to fan the flames of hate towards immigrants.

The sheer number of immigrants descending in such a short time has quickly overwhelmed the city of 58,000. One local healthcare centre reported that its phone and online translation expenses went from $4,000 in 2018 to about $400,000 last year.

The wave of immigrants, some locals claimed, was evidence that the city was front and centre in the “great replacement”, a white nationalist conspiracy theory that pushes the idea that white populations in western countries are being replaced.

As they flood into the country, critics say they soak up resources and receive money from the government for nothing in return. But those at the forefront of the city’s care services paint a very different picture.

Casey Rollins, executive director of the charity Springfield's St Vincent de Paul, says that for the most part, assistance for Haitian immigrants is limited to Medicaid – healthcare support – and food stamps.

“A huge number of our immigrants in Springfield were not given cash at all initially,” she says. “They came here with only their savings.”

Immigrants who receive official government support are required to learn English and volunteer. She believes that only about 1,800 were eligible to receive separate refugee resettlement cash assistance, and those people are required to keep a job and pay taxes.

“Much of their pay, after caring for their immediate families here, goes back to assist other family members [in Haiti],” she says. “And that’s why so many Haitians were getting robbed outside of banks when they took their cash to Western Union.”

Margery Koveleski, an American who has family ties Haiti and has been helping Haitians with their Temporary Protected Status applications, says: “Ever since Tuesday, they are all afraid. They have all travelled so much and when they get here, they can’t believe they are not wanted.

“There are two things Haitians want: safety and a job.”

But efforts by Ms Koveleski and others to help ease the immigrants' transition to life in the US have been growing.

Ohio’s governor has pledged $2.5 million for healthcare resources and police to help Springfield manage the needs of its new and existing residents. Local authorities have established a transport project to help Haitian workers without driving permits to get to and from work, and last November, two driver education seminars were held in the Haitian Creole language.

But with the national spotlight firmly on Springfield, and right-wing politicians and personalities likely to continue to take aim at immigrants before November’s elections, community members say there is still a lot of unease.

“For Haitians who don’t understand English, when they hear in the supermarket or streets the word ‘Haitian’ they get scared,” says Mr Joseph.

“They think that people have something against us.”

A demonstrator stands near a burning barricade during a protest against gang violence in the Solino neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on August 19, 2024. EPA