First Trump said Haitian migrants in Ohio were ‘eating the pets’. Now he says they’re ‘destroying America’

Donald Trump is doubling down on his bizarre and aggressive rhetoric against Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, saying that they’re “destroying” the country.

The former president promised his rally crowd in Uniondale, New York on Long Island that he would visit the small city which suddenly found itself in the midst of a vicious news cycle as Trump and his running mate JD Vance pushed false claims circulated online that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating domestic pets.

During the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia on September 10, Trump said the Biden-Harris administration has been “allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country.”

“A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it,” he added. “In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats ... 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.”

Both the Wall Street Journal and ABC News have reported that a staffer working for JD Vance was told by a Springfield official that the rumor wasn’t true but that the Republican vice presidential hopeful still chose to spread the outlandish claim, which has led to bomb threats against schools and city buildings and feelings of fear in Haitian communities throughout the US.

On the morning of September 9, Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck took a call from the Vance staffer.

“He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” Heck told the Journal. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”

Vance had already tweeted about the rumor that morning. He kept the post up and pushed a more aggressive version of the claim the following morning, the day of the debate between Trump and Harris.

On Wednesday night on Long Island, Trump yet again went after the Haitian community in Springfield. Trump said he would visit the town as he continued to make false claims about the migrants in the city.

“How about in Springfield, Ohio, they had 32,000 – this is a little beautiful town, no crime, no problem – 32,000 illegal immigrants come into the town,” Trump said. “So they almost double their population in a period of a few weeks. Can you believe it? And you know what? They’ve got to get much tougher. I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield.”

“You may never see me again, but that’s okay,” he added. “‘Whatever happened to Trump? Well, he never got out of Springfield.’”

The city of Springfield states on its website that “YES, Haitian immigrants are here legally, under the Immigration Parole Program. Once here, immigrants are then eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Haiti is designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security for TPS. Current TPS is granted through February 3, 2026.”

“So the mayor of Springfield, and I think he’s a very nice person,” Trump continued. “But instead of saying we’re getting them all out ... he says, very simply, ‘we’re hiring teachers to teach them English.’”

“Could you believe it? ‘We are hiring interpreters.’ So when they go to school and take the place of our children in school, we have an interpreter. Each one will have a private interpreter. What the hell is wrong with our country?” he asked.

Ohio state police have been called in to help protect schools, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Monday. Local officials also canceled an annual celebration of cultural diversity. This comes after Springfield City Hall, several schools, and state motor vehicle offices were evacuated last week following bomb threats. DeWine added on Monday that at least 33 bomb threats were made, none of them real.

The former president said on Wednesday night, “We’re getting them out of our country. They came in illegally. They’re destroying our country. We’re getting them out. They’re going to be brought back to the country from which they came.”

Republican Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said during a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday that a visit from the former president “would be an extreme strain on our resources. So it’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit.”

“I have to state the reality, though, that resources are really, really stretched here,” DeWine added, according to NBC News.

Meanwhile, Vance doubled down on Wednesday on calling the Haitian migrants in Springfield “illegal” even as they’re here legally.

“The media loves to say that the Haitian migrants hundreds of thousands of them, by the way, 20,000 in Springfield, but hundreds of thousands of them all across the country, they are here legally,” Vance said. “And what they mean is that Kamala Harris used two separate programs, mass parole, and temporary protective status ... to wave a wand and to say, ‘We’re not going to deport those people here.’”

He added: “Well, if Kamala Harris waves the wand illegally and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them an illegal alien. And illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. That is not how this works.”