The city of Springfield, Ohio, which was singled out by Donald J. Trump and JD Vance during the presidential campaign with false and outrageous claims about Haitian immigrants, has sued a neo-Nazi group that helped draw national attention to the small city in the first place.
The suit, filed in federal court on Thursday, was brought by the mayor, Rob Rue, along with several city commissioners and Springfield residents. It says that Blood Tribe, a four-year-old neo-Nazi group, began a campaign of intimidation focused on Haitian immigrants in the city. It culminated last summer in “a torrent of hateful conduct, including acts of harassment, bomb threats and death threats” against locals who spoke in support of the Haitian residents.
The plaintiffs cite the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which makes it a crime to deny individuals their civil rights, and accuses Blood Tribe of ethnic intimidation and inciting violence. With the legal support of the Anti-Defamation League, the plaintiffs are seeking punitive damages and compensation for the thousands of dollars spent on extra security as Blood Tribe’s campaign unfolded.
The suit does not mention Mr. Trump, who falsely claimed at a presidential debate in September that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating dogs and cats, nor Mr. Vance, who urged his “fellow patriots” to “keep the cat memes flowing.” But the suit says that Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of Blood Tribe, “gleefully took credit for the growing notoriety” of the false claims about Haitians in the city, “bragging on social media that the Blood Tribe had ‘pushed Springfield into the public consciousness.’”
The suit did not name a lawyer for Mr. Pohlhaus, who could not be reached for comment.
In recent years, between 10,000 and 20,000 Haitians had come to Springfield, a city of about 60,000 in southwestern Ohio, attracted by the substantial labor needs of the warehouses and manufacturing businesses in the area. While “the vast majority” of the Haitians are in the country lawfully and were “welcomed” by the city, the suit says, the arrival of so many newcomers in such a short time brought a range of challenges, putting serious demand on local hospitals, schools and housing.
In posts on its social media accounts last July, Blood Tribe called the arrival of large numbers of Haitians an “act of demographic warfare,” that had “caused a significant strain on the good White residents of the city.” The suit charges that Blood Tribe members, who were masked, armed and brandishing swastikas, gathered at a local jazz festival and later outside the mayor’s home. It adds that the group spread the personal information of people who supported the Haitian community, in some cases putting home addresses on websites that drew men looking for drugs or sex.
In early September, in the midst of Blood Tribe’s campaign, a woman in Springfield wrote a post on social media falsely claiming that the Haitians in Springfield had been butchering cats. The post went viral, and on Sept. 9, Mr. Vance, at the time a U.S. Senator, cited the claims on social media. Mr. Trump repeated them at the presidential debate the following day.
Around that time, at least 33 bomb threats were made by phone or email against hospitals, schools, private residences and an array of businesses in Springfield, causing multiple evacuations, the lawsuit says. The suit attributes many of those threats to “members and associates” of Blood Tribe, and includes seven unnamed defendants who are accused of making specific threats.
Under a state statute allowing private citizens to bring criminal charges, the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an advocacy group, filed charges in county court against Mr. Vance and Mr. Trump in September. The alliance said that by repeating known falsehoods about Haitians in Springfield, the two had committed several crimes, including disrupting public services, inducing panic and menacing. The county judges referred the matter to the county prosecutor, who did not issue an arrest warrant.
Subodh Chandra, a lawyer who represents the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said while the suit filed on Thursday was appropriate, it was ultimately incomplete because it doesn’t mention Mr. Trump or Mr. Vance. “No one could reasonably question that Trump and Vance played the biggest role in causing the havoc inflicted on Springfield’s government, residents and Haitian community,” Mr. Chandra said.
In an appearance on CNN in September, Mr. Vance pushed back at similar criticism. “There is nothing that I have said that has led to threats against these hospitals,” he said. Of the false claims about Haitian immigrants eating cats, Mr. Vance said: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
There is widespread support within right-wing extremist groups for the Trump administration’s goals of mass deportation, even if many remain deeply suspicious of the government, said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher with the Counter Extremism Project, a think tank with offices in New York and Berlin. But even within the universe of radical groups, Blood Tribe stands out, he said.
“Blood Tribe is incredibly confrontational,” he said, pointing out that one of the other prominent extremist events in recent months — a neo-Nazi march in Columbus, Ohio, in November — was organized by a former member-turned-rival of Blood Tribe.
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