In Springfield, Ohio, a quiet, low-lying town of little under 60,000 people on the banks of the Mad River, migrants are eating pet cats and dogs.
At least that is what the former president of the United States believes.
Donald Trump’s claims on live television during a set-piece presidential debate will almost certainly go down as one of his most memorable moments from the campaign – and perhaps even a turning point in the election.
As fanciful as they are (based largely on a medley of social media posts and half-truths), some people in Springfield are not prepared to take the risk.
Alexis House, 21, said locals are now “trying to keep their pets in instead of letting them roam around”.
“Almost everyone believes the rumours because there have been a lot of other problems.”
Some of the problems Alexis refers to are no doubt related to the about 15,000 immigrants who have settled from Haiti over roughly the last three years – drawn here in part by the lure of low-paid jobs at a massive Amazon distribution warehouse – and are reshaping this city.
Tensions with the local community have led to groups of neo-Nazis marching in the streets in recent weeks.
On a visit on Wednesday, The Telegraph found that Trump’s intervention had exacerbated a situation now familiar across the US.
The local police department was forced to clarify that it had “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Rob Rue, the mayor, says the rumours have allowed “national rhetoric to come into our community and divide us”.
At the Haitian health and support centre in Springfield, its director says Trump has stirred the pot.
“It’s devastating for the Haitian community in Springfield and it’s created fear for our members, who are scared for their lives and the lives of their kids, especially after what’s been happening in Haiti,” Viles Dorsainville says.
The Haitian Times reported that some families were keeping their children home from school, while others said they were subject to bullying, assaults and intimidation in front of their homes amid racist rhetoric on social media.
“We are not here to create harm in the community, we are here to work and send money back to our families,” said Dorsainville.”But we fear this could escalate to violence.”
Rose-Thamar Joseph, who works at the centre on the southside of Springfield, pointed out that the community numbering a quarter of Springfield’s population had come to the town because of the cheap housing and the opportunity to work, often at a nearby Amazon distribution warehouse, an auto parts or metal work plant.
With many coming under work-authorised Temporary Protected Status and others under more opaque circumstances through Mexico, the last thing the community needed or deserved was to be the focus of national political attention.
“They’re in double-trouble here because they’re foreign and they’re black in a closed-minded section of the country that is expanding maybe too quickly,’ said Valerie Hinch, a retired community worker who was dining at the Rose Goute Haitian restaurant in Springfield’s southside.
“My New York friends are sending me messages, ‘Val, be careful of your cats.’ But it’s not funny, it’s sad and ignorant.”
Several Haitian men flatly denied that animals were being taken. “It’s bulls–t,” said Joy, from Petionville in Port-au-Prince, who declined to fully identify himself.
But tensions in Springfield are real, and with them come unwelcome displays. Last month, 12 people carrying swastika flags and rifles while wearing ski masks walked around the downtown area during the Springfield Jazz & Blues Fest.
The origin of the pet abduction rumours in Springfield appear to have begun in 170 miles away in Canton when police there charged 27-year-old Allexis Ferrell with animal cruelty and disorderly conduct after it is alleged that she “did torture, kill, and eat a cat in a residential area in front (of) multiple people” on August 26.
According to the Associated Press, a post on a private Facebook page, “Springfield Ohio Crime and Information”, read: “Warning to all about our beloved pets & those around us!! My neighbour informed me that her daughter’s friend had lost her cat. She checked pages, kennels, asked around, etc.
“One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards a neighbours house, where Haitians live, & saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you’d do a deer for butchering, & they were carving it up to eat. I’ve been told they are doing this to dogs, they have been doing it at Snyder Park with the ducks & geese, as I was told that last bit by Rangers & police. Please keep a close eye on these animals.”
That may have been combined with a post on another Facebook page which reported that a partner at her work had heard from a relative who claimed he had seen a Haitian man catch and cut the head off a goose in front of children in a Springfield park. Two people said there were fewer duck on the park’s pond.
Pet abduction rumours may be no more than a mask for deep resentments.
A government survey estimates that 10 million migrants have crossed the US-Mexico border in the last four years. Just 1 per cent are unable to work, compared to 5 per cent of the indigenous US population owing to drug addiction or disability. Even Democrats now concede that without that labour force influx and mobility, wage pressures created by unfilled jobs in the absence of migrants would lead to higher inflation.
Rolland Foor, 52, and partner Maggie Crooks, 52, said they had been living in their pro-Trump decorated SUV since Foor lost his job as a forklift operator. “Me and my co-workers were told at the end of our shift we were done,” Foor said.
“I was making $21 an hour. The company brought in 15 Haitians and we found out they were taking our jobs. All because of $21 an hour versus $13 an hour. We lost everything due to them coming in here. There used to be no problem finding a job.”
In turn, he said, he knew many people who had lost their homes because landlords had turned out tenants so they could raise the rent by housing migrants on TPS government support. “There’s tons of anger in town,” Foor said.
“I’m always willing to accept migrants coming in just so long as they meet the requirements of becoming a citizen and not just here, kiss my ass, you’ve got citizenship, which I feel is what Joe Biden did,” Crooks added. “He sold us out.”
Carlton Corbin, a security guard, said the government benefits to migrants were not available to Americans. “That’s not right. We can’t get the help they’re getting for just coming over here?
That’s un-American. Be legit. Don’t come over here and take our resources and ten there’s none for people who work their asses off to have it.”
But as it stands now, any missing pet In Springfield is likely to be blamed on the Haitians.
“There will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. “And they might act on that kind of information, and act on it in a way where somebody could get hurt. So it needs to stop.”
But a billboard campaign launched by the Republican Party of Arizona at 12 sites in metropolitan Phoenix is already playing off the false Springfield rumours. The billboard image resembles an ad for the southern chicken outlet Chick-fil-A, portraying four kittens and urging people to “Vote Republican!” and “Eat Less Kittens.”
Trump’s comments may have been inflammatory, but they touch on real concerns. Jessica Hannah, 41, said her discomfort with the newcomers was not racial but cultural. “I get they’re seeking political asylum but, man, we’re getting to the point where it’s so overrun.”
Her partner said he’d lost a dog “I don’t know what happened. Really don’t have a clue.”
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