When former President Trump stood on the debate stage and spread the baseless claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating pets, Springfield Pastor Carl Ruby was in disbelief.

“My heart sank. I knew what was going to happen,” he told me.

What Ruby foresaw came true. After Trump’s September 10 debate comment came a deluge of bomb threats to local schools and businesses, as well as hate groups such as the Proud Boys descending onto the streets of Springfield. Migrants – who entered the country and settled in Springfield legally – feared for their lives as a direct result of the misinformation. Ruby, who is a senior pastor at Central Christian Church in Springfield and a long-time advocate for the town’s migrants, called it “complete chaos.”

“I told people my worst fear is that he mentions it at the debate. And he did. And from then on, it just took off,” Ruby said.

During the debate, Trump said, “In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.” The false claim that Trump made was parroted from his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, who posted on X the previous day:

“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”

The next morning, the morning of the debate, Vance posted again on X, admitted that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.” But he still encouraged his followers to “keep the cat memes flowing.”

He later defended himself on CNN, saying, “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.”

PolitiFact fact checker Louis Jacobson says that immigration has been a highly-misinformed-about topic “since Trump came down that golden escalator” in 2015. But since the debate comment, the topic has “become a piece of centrality of misinformation in the campaign.” He says that PolitiFact has had to hire multiple fact-checkers that specialize in immigration since 2015, and a PolitiFact analysis of Trump’s lies shows that he the policy area he lies about the most is immigration.

The newest claims have been repeatedly debunked by journalists – including those at PolitiFact – in addition to the Republican mayor of Springfield and the Republican governor of Ohio. The Springfield woman behind an early Facebook post that claimed her neighbor’s cat might have been kidnapped and eaten by Haitian neighbors apologized to NBC News, saying, “It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen.” Another Springfield resident, Anna Kilgore, had filed a much-spread police report about Haitian neighbors stealing her cat – but when the Wall Street Journal talked to her, she said she found her cat, Miss Sassy, in her basement a few days later.

But the recantations and fact-checks didn’t matter. National figures from Senator Ted Cruz to Elon Musk listened to Vance and posted the false claims on social media, where it spread like wildfire. Posts about Springfield ranged from threats to AI images of Trump “saving” a duck and cat in a pond, with the caption, “Protect our ducks and kittens in Ohio!” – posted to X by the Republican House Judiciary Committee, an official government account.

While talking about misinformation, Jacobson quotes satirist Jonathan Swift: “Lies spread around the world while the truth gets its pants on.” He says that even though PolitiFact fact-checks claims like the Springfield story when it was still a social media post, that doesn’t stop it from going viral. This process is possible through an agreements with Meta and TikTok: when the social media company flags a post to PolitiFact, they research and fact-check the post, which is then downgraded in the algorithm and has a fact-check alert. Still, Jacobson says this is a flawed system that reflects Swift’s quote.

“It takes us time to get the fact check. Before we can finish, it’s already spread virally,” Jacobson said. “It’s not instantaneous. It takes time, there’s not much you can do about that.”

For the migrants and their advocates like Ruby, the misinformation and the fallout has them living on edge.

“I think there were a total of somewhere between 30 and 50 bomb threats,” Ruby said. “Schools canceled, hospitals closed, grocery stores closed. … Everyone was nervous. People are afraid. My family is very afraid. Some people have been afraid to come to church because of the publicity that I have had as a spokesman for the Haitians.”

The day after the debate, one anonymous Springfield Haitian migrant told The Haitian Times, “She [my niece] was scared [to go to school], but I told her to go, that God would protect.”

Another told The Haitian Times, “I’m going to have to move because this area is no longer good for me. I can’t even leave my house to go to Walmart. I’m anxious and scared.”

Ruby himself has been a target for hate and misinformation.

“I was accused of trafficking Haitians into town. I was accused of owning rental properties and making money off of them, all sorts of just bizarre, totally false things that just took off on social media,”  Ruby said. “I would get threats online saying Carl Ruby is a piece of sh*t who needs to be run out of town, or Carl Ruby is a coyote. I’m just not looking at their social media because it’s not really helpful for me to see.”

Still, Ruby says that with all of the hate, there has also been an outpouring of support from within Springfield and across the world.

“People have really rallied to [the migrants’] defense and people are welcoming them, telling them that they’re glad that they’re here,” Ruby recounted. “I expected lots and lots of angry phone calls and angry messages, and there have been a couple. But for every negative one, there’s been 100 positive ones.”