Ohio's Republican AG defends conspiracy chorus about Haitians in Springfield

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Wednesday did his bit to amplify a conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants legally present in Springfield, Ohio are stealing and eating pets, ducks and geese.

The conspiracy has been debunked by the Springfield mayor, city manager and chief of police, as well as by Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Yost is looking to succeed DeWine as governor in 2026.

“Citizens testified to City Council,” Yost posted on X Wednesday. “These people would be competent witnesses in court. Why does the media find a carefully worded City Hall press release better evidence?”

Many of Springfield’s public buildings were closed for much of the day Thursday due to bomb threats after former President Donald Trump on Tuesday repeated a widely debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants were stealing people’s pets and eating them.

“ They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

A day earlier, on Monday, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, posted on X that “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”

As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Thursday, between 15,000 and 20,000 Haitians have migrated to Springfield over the past five years. Contrary to Vance’s claim, the great majority of them are legally in the United States, either as naturalized citizens or under temporary protected status due to the violent chaos in their home country.

While resources in the city of almost 60,000 have been strained by the heavy influx, the New York Times last week reported that many there believe it also revitalized a community that had long been on the decline.

But Trump and his supporters have long been whipping up fears of immigrants — particularly those of color — even though multiple studies show that immigrants — particularly the undocumented — commit crime at substantially lower rates than the native-born.

The influx of thousands of immigrants had already brought hate groups to Springfield, with a neo-Nazi group marching there in August.

Some Springfield residents have begged politicians to stop promoting conspiracy theories about their community. And some Haitian immigrants are keeping their children home out of fear for their safety, the Haitian Times reported Thursday.

But last week, Yost’s campaign claimed that undocumented immigrants were “terrorizing” Ohio communities. As evidence, it pointed to a Fox News article about the situation in Springfield that made no such claim.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday, Yost continued to perpetuate assertions about Haitians in Springfield.

“There’s a recorded police call from a witness who saw immigrants capturing geese for food in Springfield,” Yost said in his X post. “Citizens testified to City Council. These people would be competent witnesses in court. Why does the media find a carefully worded City Hall press release better evidence?”

In other words, Yost, a former journalist, was criticizing the media for not assigning the same credibility to any claim made in a police call or council meeting as they would to the public declarations of the Springfield mayor, city manager, police chief, and the Ohio governor.

Yost campaign spokeswoman Amy Natoce was asked how the attorney general could justify this logic, and whether he was concerned that his post would further whip up racial resentments and place a target on a minority community in the United States.

She replied that Yost was using official resources to answer those questions.

“Since the AG’s staff is writing a legal memo on this, I’ll have you reach out to the official office with your inquiries,” she said.

Asked the same questions, the AG’s Communications Director didn’t respond directly. She instead discussed problems dealing with the influx.

“This is what the people of Springfield are reporting,” she said in an email. “You can choose to believe them or not believe them. But the indisputable fact is that the heavy influx of immigrants is overwhelming the city’s services and schools. And the federal government is doing nothing to help. AG Yost is interested in finding a pathway to help Springfield and other communities by holding the federal government accountable.”

Anti-immigrant rhetoric has been linked to mass violence. Experts say that whipping up fears of an “immigrant invasion” and “terror” and conspiracy theories of a “great replacement” have helped motivate racist massacres over the past six years in El Paso, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh.

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