Bomb Threats Don't Stop J.D. Vance From Attacking Legal Immigrants in Ohio Town
The
racist lie that Haitian immigrants are eating cats in Springfield, Ohio, appears to be having tangible consequences as elementary schools were forced to evacuate on Friday, a day after the town evacuated its city hall following bomb threats. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, continues to stoke hate against Haitian immigrants.
Trump and Vance have pushed a debunked rumor that Haitians in Ohio have been stealing and eating neighborhood animals, with Trump spreading the lie in front of tens of millions of Americans during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday.
Two public Springfield elementary schools
evacuated and a public middle school was closed on Friday following a warning from the Springfield Police Division. Clark State College also
closed buildings in Springfield on Thursday and Friday. A local Catholic school also let students out early on Friday,
citing "safety threats of nearby locations" in a Facebook post.
On Thursday, a bomb threat led to multiple buildings closing, including City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and two elementary schools. Bomb-sniffing dogs inspected the facilities, and the FBI is working with local police to find where the threat originated.
City authorities have made clear that they have seen no evidence of Haitian migrants killing and eating pets.
Vance
acknowledged earlier this week that the allegations were only "rumors," but still encouraged his followers to keep pushing memes about migrants eating pets.
Vance posted Friday on X, formerly Twitter: "In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime. This is what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community," referencing Haitian immigrants who have come to Springfield since the pandemic."
"Don't let biased media shame you into not discussing this slow moving humanitarian crisis in a small Ohio town," he added. "We shoudl [sic] talk about it every single day. Kamala Harris did this. And she'll keep doing it unless we stop her," he wrote.
Trump took the lie mainstream during the presidential debate on Tuesday. "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs," Trump said. "The people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there."
Trump pushed the false claim again during his campaign rally on Thursday. "There's a place called Springfield, Ohio, that you've been reading about. Twenty-thousand illegal Haitian immigrants have descended upon the town of 58,000 people, destroying their entire way of life. This was a beautiful community and now it's horrible what's happened,"
he said.
The Haitians living in Springfield, however, are not there illegally.
In 2016, before he converted to MAGA, Vance criticized Trump's attitude toward immigrants. "Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc," Vance
wrote. "Because of this, I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us."
Haitian immigrants aren't creating chaos, but conservatives certainly are.
www.threads.net
