Donald Trump says immigrants are eating Springfield’s pets. What?

WHEN DONALD TRUMP uttered the word “Springfield” 33 minutes into the American presidential debate on September 10th, David Muir, the co-moderator, was prepared. In that small Ohio town, Mr Trump declared, illegal immigrants are “eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people who live there”. Mr Muir promptly replied that, according to Springfield’s city manager, there were no credible reports of pet-eating. The former president’s claim must have struck many viewers as bizarre. But lots of Mr Trump’s fans were primed for it: the allegation had been circulating in right-wing circles on social media, boosted by Elon Musk, the owner of X. How did the town come to be at the centre of a right-wing conspiracy theory?

Springfield has seen a dramatic influx of migrants in a short period. In 2020, at the last census, it had just over 58,000 residents. An estimated 15,000-20,000 Haitians have since moved there—the first wave attracted by jobs, and later movers by the growing community of their countrymen. Most have at least a temporary right to work under a federal scheme. J.D. Vance, Mr Trump’s running-mate and a senator for Ohio, has been talking about the effect of their arrival on the town since at least July, arguing that the migrants drive up housing costs and strain social services. That month, Springfield’s city manager, Bryan Heck, warned on Fox News that without federal funding, “communities like Springfield will fail”.

There is evidence that the new population has driven up the waiting-times and spending of local health-care services, one of which had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on translators. Springfield, like much of America, already had a housing shortage, and prices are rising because of increased demand.

Those things may be bad for residents in the short term—but the migrants seem to be benefiting the town’s economy. Springfield was a Rust Belt town in decline until, in the mid-2010s, its leaders developed a strategy to attract employers. When Haitian immigrants began arriving, they filled manufacturing jobs that had not been taken up by locals. It seemed to be a case study in migration’s trade-offs—a debate that often pits economists, who point to long-term overall benefits, against politicians, who highlight shorter-term local concerns.

But things took a darker turn last year. Anti-immigrant sentiment exploded locally when, in August 2023, a Haitian man with a foreign driving licence crashed his van into a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy. On September 9th Mr Vance amplified claims that had been circulating on Facebook, by posting on X that Springfielders were having their “pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country”. Mr Musk posted a video of one such resident, who said that immigrants were stealing ducks from parks and eating them. The official account representing the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee posted an AI-generated image of Mr Trump with his arms around a duck and a kitten. (The cat-eating allegations stem from a Springfield Facebook post which cited fourth-hand knowledge. Some conflated it with an incident that occurred 175 miles away: in August a woman born in Ohio was charged with animal cruelty for killing and eating a cat.) Mr Heck rejected the claims as baseless; the Springfield police said they had received no credible reports of pets being stolen or eaten.

Quite apart from the fact that he was repeating a lie, Mr Trump’s decision to mention the pet-eating claims was probably bad politics. He may have pleased his base, much of which already believed the wild rumours. But many undecided voters were surely bemused by his comments. In Ohio, meanwhile, the escalation seems to have prompted Mike DeWine, the Republican governor, to act: on September 10th he pledged $2.5m to Springfield to expand access to health care. Mr DeWine, who has visited Haiti around 20 times and has long run a charity there, added: “The Haitians who are here are hard-working people.”  ■