MAGA Launches Most Unbelievable Conspiracy Yet—on Migrants Eating Pets

The MAGA right, including Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, are spreading a racist rumor that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are capturing, cooking, and eating people’s pet cats and ducks.

Right-wingers seemed to have conflated a report from Canton, Ohio, of a woman who was arrested for allegedly killing and eating a cat, with complaints from residents in Springfield, more than 170 miles away from Canton. The woman is a U.S. citizen, and there is no indication she is a Haitian immigrant.

Meanwhile, police in Springfield say they have received no reports of pets being stolen and eaten, according to the Springfield News-Sun. The newspaper says that the rumor began from a local Facebook group, where a poster claimed that her neighbor’s daughter’s friend lost her pet cat and found it hanging from a tree branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home to be carved and eaten.

The post cited, with no evidence, that “rangers” and police said that “they have been doing it” at a local park with ducks and geese, according to the newspaper. But these reports do not appear to have reached the right, who are not only spreading the rumor, but using it to promote anti-immigrant policies and make racist attacks.

The House Judiciary Committee’s Republican members, former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Representative Mike Collins, Elon Musk, commentator Charlie Kirk, conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, influencer Ian Miles Cheong, and many others have all picked up and spread the rumor, in some cases with bizarre A.I.-generated images of Donald Trump holding cats and ducks.

Vance reshared a video from a Senate hearing earlier this year where he claimed “Haitian illegal immigrants” were draining public resources in Springfield, repeating the baseless story that pets were being eaten. Other right-wing influencers have also shared reports of Springfield residents complaining about Haitian immigrants killing and eating ducks.

In reality, while Haitian immigrants have settled in the town since the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, local officials have been debunking rumors and misinformation about them for a long time, saying that any increases in crime are in line with national trends. Like in other elections, the GOP is using immigration fearmongering in the hopes that it will scare up votes and give credibility to Trump’s planned mass deportations.