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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart sank. I knew what was going to happen,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n
What Ruby foresaw came true. After Trump\u2019s 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 \u2013 who entered the country and settled in Springfield legally \u2013 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\u2019s migrants, called it \u201ccomplete chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI told people my worst fear is that he mentions it at the debate. And he did. And from then on, it just took off,\u201d Ruby said.<\/p>\n
During the debate, Trump said, \u201cIn Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They\u2019re eating \u2013 they are eating the pets of the people that live there.\u201d The false claim that Trump made was parroted from his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, who\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0on X the previous day:<\/p>\n \u201cMonths 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\u2019t be in this country. Where is our border czar?\u201d<\/p>\n The next morning, the morning of the debate, Vance\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0again on X, admitted that \u201cit\u2019s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.\u201d But he still encouraged his followers to \u201ckeep the cat memes flowing.\u201d<\/p>\n He later defended himself on CNN,\u00a0saying<\/a>, \u201cIf I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n PolitiFact fact checker Louis Jacobson says that immigration has been a highly-misinformed-about topic \u201csince Trump came down that golden escalator\u201d in 2015. But since the debate comment, the topic has \u201cbecome a piece of centrality of misinformation in the campaign.\u201d He says that PolitiFact has had to hire multiple fact-checkers that specialize in immigration since 2015, and a PolitiFact analysis<\/a>\u00a0of Trump\u2019s lies shows that he the policy area he lies about the most is immigration.<\/p>\n The newest claims have been repeatedly debunked by journalists \u2013 including those at PolitiFact \u2013 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\u2019s cat might have been kidnapped and eaten by Haitian neighbors\u00a0apologized<\/a>\u00a0to NBC News, saying, \u201cIt just exploded into something I didn\u2019t mean to happen.\u201d Another Springfield resident, Anna Kilgore, had filed a much-spread police report about Haitian neighbors stealing her cat \u2013 but when the Wall Street Journal\u00a0talked<\/a>\u00a0to her, she said she found her cat, Miss Sassy, in her basement a few days later.<\/p>\n But the recantations and fact-checks didn\u2019t 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 \u201csaving\u201d a duck and cat in a pond, with the caption, \u201cProtect our ducks and kittens in Ohio!\u201d \u2013\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0to X by the Republican House Judiciary Committee, an official government account.<\/p>\n While talking about misinformation, Jacobson quotes satirist Jonathan Swift: \u201cLies spread around the world while the truth gets its pants on.\u201d He says that even though PolitiFact fact-checks claims like the Springfield story when it was still<\/a> a social media post, that doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes us time to get the fact check. Before we can finish, it\u2019s already spread virally,\u201d Jacobson said. \u201cIt\u2019s not instantaneous. It takes time, there\u2019s not much you can do about that.\u201d<\/p>\n For the migrants and their advocates like Ruby, the misinformation and the fallout has them living on edge.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there were a total of somewhere between 30 and 50 bomb threats,\u201d Ruby said. \u201cSchools canceled, hospitals closed, grocery stores closed. \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n