Republicans spread baseless slurs about ‘cat-eating migrants’ in Ohio city

Bansal Oreus helps other Haitian immigrants with government documents at the St Vincent de Paul Society in Springfield, Ohio, last month. Photograph: Howard Schneider/Reuters

Prominent Republicans including the Trump campaign and JD Vance are sharing false and unsubstantiated claims that Haitian migrants in an Ohio city are eating pets and local wildlife.

The salacious and often racist social media posts claim, without evidence, that migrants from Haiti to Springfield, Ohio, are stealing pets and local wildlife such as ducks and geese and are butchering them for food. Many of the posts, including one shared by the X account for the Republicans on the House judiciary committee, use images generated by artificial intelligence to show Donald Trump holding and protecting cats and ducks, casting him as a savior to the town. Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, shared a meme of two cats hugging one another that said, “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”