Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) doubled down on a false claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating residents' pets during an interview Sunday morning on CNN's "State of the Union."
The claim, spread primarily by Vance and made more viral by former President Donald Trump during Tuesday's presidential debate, has been repeatedly debunked by Springfield's city officials and police.
"My constituents have brought approximately a dozen separate concerns to me. Ten of them are verifiable and confirmable and a couple of them I talk about because my constituents are telling me firsthand that they're seeing these things," Vance said during an interview with CNN's Dana Bash. "I could ignore them, which is what the American media has done for years to this community, or I can actually talk about what people are telling me. And of course, many of the things that the media says are completely baseless have since been confirmed. For example, I was told, Dana, by the American media that it was baseless, that migrants were capturing the geese from the local park pond and eating them. And yet there are 9-1-1 calls from well before this ever became a viral sensation of people complaining about that exact thing happening."
RELATED STORY | Trump amplifies false claim about migrants eating pets during debate
The conspiracy theory's origins on social media have also been linked to a Sept. 6 Facebook post that was later shared on X in which someone claimed their neighbor's daughter's friend's cat was seen at a house "where Haitians live," hanging from a tree and about to be eaten.
Per Scripps News' partner Politifact, the Facebook post was flagged as an unfounded claim by Meta, which is working to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.
One of the people whose social media post reportedly contributed to the rumor storm told NBC News on Saturday that it "exploded into something" that she didn’t mean to happen.
RELATED STORY | Father of Ohio boy asks Trump not to invoke his son's death in immigration debate
The continued demonization of Haitian immigrants in the small Ohio town has created a firestorm. Its city hall, hospitals and schools had to close due to recent bomb threats.
"It is disappointing that some of the narrative surrounding our city has been skewed by misinformation circulated on social media and further amplified by political rhetoric in a current highly charged presidential election cycle," Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck said on Wednesday.
