Fact Check: Trump falsely claims Haitian immigrants are ‘eating pets’

Former United States President Donald Trump made the false assertion that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets.

Trump repeated the baseless claim during the presidential debate with Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

“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,” Trump said.

When anchor and debate moderator David Muir responded that city officials disputed that claim, Trump insisted he had seen people saying so on television.

US media reports

According to US media reports, officials in Springfield, Ohio, said they have not received any credible reports of Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets, despite viral claims on social media that have been amplified by Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance.

Earlier this week, Vance posted on social media that his office has “received many inquiries” about Haitian migrants abducting pets. Vance acknowledged it was possible “all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

On Monday, Vance posted on X. “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?” he said.

The actual source where the claim originated has not been identified, but local media reported that it may be linked to a viral post in a Springfield Facebook group.

A post surfaced on X, formerly Twitter, that shared what looked like a screengrab of a social media post apparently out of Springfield. The retweeted post talked about the person’s “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” seeing a cat hanging from a tree to be butchered and eaten, claiming without evidence that Haitians lived at the house. The accompanying photo showed a Black man carrying what appeared to be a Canada goose by its feet.

The next day, Vance posted again on X about Springfield, saying his office had received inquires from residents who said “their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

Republicans Senator Ted Cruz posted a photo of kittens with a caption that said to vote for Trump “So Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”

Some social media users shared body camera footage of an unrelated incident in which an Ohio woman was accused of killing and eating a cat in Canton, a city more than 170 miles away from Springfield. Public records indicate the woman in the footage, Allexis Telia Ferrell, is not a migrant and has lived in Ohio for at least 18 years.

Springfield, a city of roughly 60,000, has seen its Haitian population grow in recent years.  There are an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 migrants in Ohio’s Clark County, with more than 10,000 coming from Haiti.