‘They’re eating the pets:’ Trump, Vance earn PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year for claims about Haitians

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Underlying 2024’s most outrageous political lie was a truth — some might even argue a confession — voiced by an accomplice:

To get media attention, then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance acknowledged, sometimes "I have to create stories."

And so, with a brazen disregard for facts, Donald Trump and his running mate repeatedly peddled a created story that in Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants were eating pet dogs and cats.

With this claim, amplified before 67 million television viewers in his debate against Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump took his anti-migrant, the U.S. border-is-out-of-control campaign agenda to a new level.

"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs," Trump said Sept. 10. "The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame."

City and county officials said repeatedly that it was not happening. 

Rebuttals did not diminish the consequences: Dozens of bomb threats at schools, grocery stores and government buildings. Pleas from locals to leave them alone. A continued lack of constructive debate on immigration and border control issues.

After the threats subsided, some Haitians didn’t want to go in public or send their children to school. The police department sent an officer to protect churchgoers at a Haitian Creole Sunday afternoon mass. Haitian restaurant owners and schoolchildren heard taunts from people using Trump’s words. 

"‘Dad, do we eat dogs at the house?’" Jacob Payen, a Haitian Community Alliance spokesperson and business owner, recalled his 7-year-old son asking.

The Haitian population in Springfield had swelled since 2021 as people fled Haiti’s violence and instability. City officials estimated 12,000 to 20,000 Haitians had come to this city of about 58,000 residents in 2020, after hearing about jobs and low living costs. Most Haitians live in the U.S. legally under a temporary federal protection President Joe Biden extended.

The sudden population surge came with growing pains on housing, health services, road safety and schools. When the local conversation turned to unfounded rumors and fearmongering, Trump and Vance seized an opportunity.

Vance’s central role in fanning unwarranted attention on a city in the state he represents in the U.S. Senate caused resentment among some locals. 

"Vance threw us under the bus," said Rob Baker, a political science professor since 1987 at Springfield’s Wittenberg University. 

PolitiFact, which for 16 years has issued a year-end lie of the year report, keenly understands that when emotions collide with facts, emotions often prevail. To wit: Trump increased his voter support in Clark County, Ohio, which includes Springfield, this year above what he garnered in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

In choosing the 2024 Lie of the Year, the claims by Vance and Trump about Haitians eating pets stood out. 

It was an absurd statement that Trump raised unprompted on the debate stage. 

And neither Trump nor Vance stopped there. They stuck with the narrative for the rest of the campaign, over the objections of allies who debunked it and pleaded with them to let it go. When challenged by voters and interviewers, Trump said he heard it on TV; Vance said constituents had called his office with the claim.

"What am I supposed to do? Hang up the phone and tell them they’re a liar because the media doesn’t want me to talk about it?" Vance said in October.

Emboldened by Vance’s embrace of the rumor, Trump’s debate outburst cemented lasting consequences, stigmatizing a town and its residents in the name of campaign rage. For those reasons, Trump and Vance own the 2024 Lie of the Year.

An image of a broken heart is fixed across the street from City Hall on Sept. 17, 2024, in Springfield, Ohio. (AP)

Haitians in Springfield fled their home country after their family members were killed, their businesses were burned down and their lives were endangered. The country was thrown into chaos, its capital city controlled by gangs, after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, an earthquake and a tropical storm. 

As their population grew in Springfield, the Haitian immigrants filled jobs and opened restaurants and stores. 

Some longtime residents grew irritated by the strain on city services, such as wait times for public health services, a housing shortage and rising rents. 

In August 2023, a tragedy deepened the resentment: Hermanio Joseph, a Haitian who is in the U.S. legally and lacked a valid driver’s license, drove a minivan into a school bus, injuring about 20 children and killing Aiden Clark, 11. It was the first day of school. Joseph was found guilty of vehicular homicide and involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to prison.

Angry residents attended city commission meetings over the next year to ask questions about how so many Haitians ended up in Springfield. They said the Haitians didn’t know driving laws or cultural norms and didn’t speak English. 

Local leaders acknowledged the road dangers and overburdened public services. They described steps they and the state had taken to mitigate the strains, such as hiring interpreters and launching drivers’ education classes. City Manager Bryan Heck said Springfield had struggled with housing scarcity for years before the Haitians arrived. 

On July 8, Heck sent a letter to the leadership of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, copying Vance, requesting federal help. The next day, at a banking committee meeting, Vance highlighted Springfield’s housing shortage and demands on hospital and school services among the "very real human consequences" of immigration. Trump announced Vance as his running mate about a week later. 

Discussion of real tension quickly turned to hearsay molded by racist tropes.

The earliest rumors PolitiFact found of Haitians stealing and eating pets and geese came in August amid a neo-Nazi group’s protest. On Aug. 10, a dozen people carrying swastika flags marched downtown, protesting the city’s Haitian immigrants. The national white supremacist group Blood Tribe, which has opposed immigration around the country, posted on Gab, a social networking platform used by far-right groups, to take credit for the march.

"Once haitians swarm into a town animals start to disappear," an anonymous user commented. 

That post garnered only a few likes and comments. 

On Aug. 26, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office received a call from someone who said he saw four Haitians carrying geese. Wildlife officials found no evidence to corroborate the claim.

On social media the same day, users amplified similar claims with thirdhand accounts. In an Aug. 26 Facebook post, a woman said her work partner’s brother-in-law saw a Haitian man cut the heads off geese in front of children. She tagged Springfield resident Anthony Harris, who told the story at a city commission meeting the next day, adding that the man ate the beheaded geese.

On a private Facebook group about crime in Springfield, a resident said Haitians stole and ate a neighbor’s daughter’s friend’s cat. (The woman later took down the post and said she regretted it.) In the first week of September, verified accounts on X, sent the claim viral when they posted a screenshot of the Facebook post. 

"Springfield is a small town in Ohio. 4 years ago, they had 60k residents. Under Harris and Biden, 20,000 Haitian immigrants were shipped to the town," End Wokeness, a pro-Trump X account with more than 3 million followers, posted Sept. 6. "Now ducks and pets are disappearing."

End Wokeness’ X post, which has 5 million views, included a photo of a Black man holding what appears to be a dead goose. The photo was taken in Columbus, Ohio, about 48 miles east of Springfield, according to a July Reddit post. 

Vance was the first from the Republican presidential ticket to pounce.

"Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio," Vance posted Sept. 9 on X. "Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country."

The same day, a Trump campaign account posted on X, "President Trump will deport migrants who eat pets. Kamala Harris will send them to your town next. Make your choice, America." 

On Sept. 9, PolitiFact and other news organizations fact-checked the claims that Haitians were eating pets. The reports said there was no evidence of it.

Shortly before 10 a.m. on Sept. 10, debate day, Vance wrote on X, "It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false." He tapped into Aiden’s death. "Do you know what's confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here." 

At 4:15 p.m., Springfield Mayor Rob Rue and Clark County Commission President Melanie Flax Wilt, both Republicans, held a press conference to respond to the false pet-eating claims. 

"We have not been able to verify any credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community," Rue said.

The Trump campaign was undeterred. At around 5 p.m., Trump shared on Truth Social images of an army of MAGA hat-wearing cats holding guns and another of Trump seated among fluffy cats and ducks in his plane. 

A couple of hours before the debate, Aiden’s father, Nathan Clark, pleaded with politicians to stop describing his son’s death as a murder.

"Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose," Clark said at a 7 p.m. city commission meeting. He called out multiple politicians, including Vance and Trump. "They have spoken my son's name and used his death for political gain. This needs to stop now." 

At the Philadelphia prime-time debate, Trump needed no prompting. In response to the night’s first question about the economy, Trump said immigrants in Springfield were "taking over."

A half hour later, when asked about how he pressured Republicans to thwart a bipartisan border security bill, Trump said: 

"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame."

ABC News debate moderator David Muir told Trump that the city manager (Heck) said there had been no credible reports of Haitians harming pets.

Trump disagreed. His source? Television.

"The people on television say, ‘My dog was taken and used for food,’" Trump said. 

By the end of the night, Springfield had ricocheted into a global story.

After the debate, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Vance, "Why push something that’s not true?"

Vance once again cited his constituents, saying his office had received first- and secondhand accounts. 

Collins replied, "I mean, if someone calls your office and says they saw Bigfoot, that doesn't mean they saw Bigfoot. You have a sense of responsibility as a running mate, and he certainly does as the candidate, to not promote false information."

Later that night, Trump shared a Truth Social post saying an Ohio woman ate a cat in front of her neighbors. But that incident happened in Canton, Ohio, and the woman was not a Haitian immigrant. 

Springfield faced its first bomb threats Sept. 12, two days after the debate. Over the next few days, more than 30 bomb threats forced city hall, elementary schools, Wittenberg University, Clark State College, Springfield Regional Medical Center, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, two Walmarts and a Kroger grocery store to lock down, evacuate or temporarily close. Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said the bomb threats were hoaxes, many coming from overseas. 

With Springfield rattled, Trump retold the story about pet-eating migrants to Arizona voters.

"Recording of 911 calls even show residents are reporting that the migrants are walking off with the town's geese. They're taking the geese, you know, where the geese are, in the park, in the lake, and even walking off with their pets. ‘My dog's been taken. My dog's been stolen,’" Trump said Sept. 12 in Tucson. 

On Sept. 13, a reporter asked Trump why he was still spreading the false story, citing the bomb threats that followed the debate.

"The real threat is what’s happening at our border," Trump said.

Vance and Trump eventually pivoted from the pets to the city’s other issues — grossly inflating the problems. 

Vance twisted data about communicable diseases and the city’s murder rate. Trump wildly exaggerated the immigrants’ effect on schools, saying Haitian schoolchildren "take the place of our children in school," and "each one will have a private interpreter." The school district hired several English as-a-second-language teachers and Haitian Creole interpreters as the number of students rose from 200 to 1,200 in two years. 

Trump name-dropped Springfield dozens of times as an example of a city hijacked by immigrants. He proposed a solution: mass deportation.

"We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio. Large deportations. We're going to get these people out," Trump told reporters Sept. 13 in California. 

Although most Haitians in Springfield are legally allowed to stay in the U.S. through February 2026, Trump has promised to end their protections.

In national Sunday show interviews, Vance accused the national media of ignoring Springfield’s immigration story until he and Trump "started talking about cat memes."

"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," Vance said Sept. 15 on CNN’s "State of the Union." 

On CBS News’ "Face the Nation," Vance again said he was just channeling constituents’ concerns.

"Now, maybe all of these constituents are lying to me," Vance said, calling on the media to do "some real investigation."

Many local, national and international reporters did investigate, traveling to Springfield. They found no evidence to validate the lie. 

In an Oct. 16 Univision town hall, a Republican Arizona voter who lives near the U.S. border with Mexico asked Trump if he really believed that Haitians were eating pets.

"I was just saying what was reported," Trump said. 

On Oct. 20, Fox News host Howard Kurtz pushed Trump about not acknowledging he had spread a falsehood.

"Why not say now, ‘Well, look, that turned out not to be true?’" Kurtz asked.

Trump said: "I don't know if it's true or not true. I read something," and "I don't think it's been debunked at all."

On the days of back-to-back bomb threats, Marie Morett, who was working as a bilingual assistant for Springfield area schools, said teachers told elementary school students they were going on a field trip. But they were seeking safety at evacuation centers. 

Morett sat with students for hours as they waited for parents to pick them up. She said she had to take breaks often to collect herself. 

"When you have to assist one building with bomb threats, and the following day you have a second one and the third day you have another one, you're like, OK, it's just a matter of time before they come after the building I'm working at," Morett said.

A week after the debate and heaviest period of bomb threats, parents were still afraid to send their children to school. On Sept. 17, one Springfield elementary school had about 200 of 500 children absent, Springfield City Schools Superintendent Robert Hill said at a press conference.

"There is still a high level of fear due to these unfounded threats and hoaxes that have marred our existence really for going on a week now," Hill said.

Payen, the Haitian Community Alliance spokesperson, told his first grader son that the people asking whether his family ate dogs were joking. But Payen, who moved to Springfield in 2021 after decades living elsewhere in the U.S., knew it wasn’t a joke.

"He gets bullied because his parents supposedly eat dogs and cats," Payen said. "So, this is something my son is going to live with for a long time, and we're not gonna be able to change that fact."

Karl Mattila, left, and his wife, Linda, of Medway, Ohio, talk Sept. 16, 2024, with Haitian and longtime Springfield resident Jacob Payen at Rose Goute Creole Restaurant in Springfield, Ohio. (AP)

Haitian restaurant owners fielded threatening and demeaning emails and phone calls, some asking whether they served cat or dog.

"I said, ‘No. I don’t have cat. I have chicken,’" said Romane Pierre, manager of Rose Goute Creole Restaurant. "I tried to be polite."

DeWine, who was born in Springfield, became the most prominent Republican to challenge Trump and Vance’s rhetoric and defend the Haitians. DeWine and his wife, Fran started a school in Haiti in memory of their daughter Becky, who died in a 1993 car accident.

DeWine said in a Dec. 5 press conference that business owners have told him that they wouldn’t be able to meet the demands for their products without the Haitian workers.

"That's just a fact," he said.

Before the debate, Jamie McGregor, CEO of McGregor Metal, spoke to national news outlets about the benefits of hiring Haitian workers.

"I wish I had 30 more," McGregor told PBS in a Sept. 9 story. 

By the end of the month, McGregor received death threats. He told The New York Times the FBI showed up at his company and advised him on how to keep his family and business safe. He bought a gun, something he’d vowed never to do. 

As the pet-eating lie stoked fears and threats, local residents said it also prompted support. 

Out-of-towners patronized the city’s Haitian restaurants. A foundation donated 10 driving simulators. People as far away as Texas and California donated to the United Way’s Springfield Unity Fund. 

"We choose love over lies," one person wrote in a comment on the fund’s donation page. "You are welcome here. Praying for you!"

The Sunday after the presidential election, congregants of the Church of the Resurrection in Solon, Ohio, drove three hours to attend an afternoon mass for Haitians and have dinner at Springfield’s St. Raphael's Catholic Church. The church members brought a big poster board with handwritten messages: "We are glad you are here."

A poster board with handwritten messages of support from congregants of the Church of the Resurrection in Solon, Ohio, to Haitians is seen Dec. 3, 2024, in Springfield’s St. Raphael's Catholic Church. (Maria Ramirez Uribe/PolitiFact)

Attendance at the Haitian mass has dropped. Haitian leaders told PolitiFact that they have heard of Haitians moving to other cities in Ohio, Massachusetts or Canada. Some Haitians fear that when Trump is inaugurated Jan. 20, they will be an early target for mass deportations.

Margery Koveleski, a New York-born Springfield resident of Haitian descent, helps translate for Haitians as they navigate their new lives. Now, she says she’s turned into a travel agent, booking travel for Haitians who want to leave.

If Trump succeeds in ending their Temporary Protected Status, many of Springfield’s Haitian immigrants would have to go through immigration court before being deported. There, they could make a case for asylum, which would allow them to stay in the U.S. 

Since his election win, Trump hasn’t mentioned Springfield or singled out its Haitian residents as a target for deportation. In a Dec. 8 interview on "Meet the Press," Trump said he would prioritize immigrants in the country illegally who have a criminal record.

Payen said that doesn’t eliminate Haitians’ fears.

"You cannot change the whole fact you already told these people you're gonna do a mass deportation, starting with Springfield, Ohio," Payen said.

In his Time magazine 2024 "Person of the Year" interview, Trump said it was important to discuss immigration, even if his details were exaggerated.

"The country was angry because of immigration, because of the people, you know, millions and millions of people. I was saying it could be 21 million people," Trump told Time. "They were saying a much lesser number, but it wasn't a much lesser number. But even if it was, it was irrelevant, because it was — they were allowing anybody to come into our country."

The number of border encounters under Biden’s tenure is about 10.6 million, as of October, or half of Trump’s 21-million figure.

A significant swath of voters believed Trump’s comments about Haitians.

A YouGov poll conducted Sept. 11 and 12 asked respondents if Haitians were abducting cats and dogs and eating them. It found that nearly half of Republicans said it was definitely or probably true as did about one quarter of independents. A Washington Post poll in early October of Ohio voters found that among Republicans, 42% said Trump was telling the truth when he said Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets. (The vast majority of Democrats in both polls said it was false.)

Ernesto Castañeda, director of the Immigration Lab at American University and co-author of "Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions," said Trump’s Haitian migrant rhetoric moved the immigration conversation from asylum seekers at the southwest border to a small Ohio town. 

"While false and widely fact-checked, it was effective because it combined our love for pets with xenophobia," Castañeda said. 

About 64% of voters in Clark County, in which Springfield is the largest city, voted for Trump in 2024, up from his 61% share of the 2020 vote and 57% share of the 2016 vote. Trump won the Springfield-area precincts by slightly more than 50%.

Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University research assistant professor who used to run an Ohio immigrant rights organization, said Trump’s massive platform legitimized the hoaxes and kept them circulating long after they were disproved. 

"It is important that we have a robust public debate about our broken immigration system," Kocher said. "But when healthy disagreement gives way to utter fabrication, real people can — and do — get hurt."

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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