Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump made a shocking claim at his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris: that immigrants were abducting and eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio. The claim has been the subject of intense controversy ever since. But how did Trump come to believe this rumor, and why does his campaign continue to defend what he said at the debate?
Background
Immigration has been at the forefront of Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement since its inception in 2015. Trump and his allies have consistently boosted negative stories about immigrants, including so-called caravans of migrants making their way through Central America and Mexico to the U.S. southern border and crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, which Trump has dubbed “migrant crime.” Portraying the situation at the southern border as chaotic and dangerous has been a key part of Trump’s political strategy now for close to a decade.
Immigration is particularly central to Trump’s 2024 campaign, as well as the prospects of Republicans more broadly. The public has consistently and sharply disapproved of the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the border and immigration. An August AP-NORC poll, for example, found that voters trusted Trump to handle immigration more than Harris by a margin of 46-36%, which is in line with other surveys showing a modest but consistent advantage for Republicans on the issue. The Trump campaign has sought to tie both legal and illegal immigration to everything from the cost of housing to inflation and wages.
What’s the matter with Springfield?
None of that background, however, fully explains why the former president has become fixated on an unsubstantiated rumor about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. A community of about 60,000 residents half an hour from the city of Dayton, Springfield has become a destination for Haitians who are in the United States legally, many under the Biden administration’s 2021 expansion of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to citizens of the country. Republicans opposed that policy, and have sought ways to attack Democrats for pursuing it.
The claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating pets appears to have originated with a Facebook post that was then amplified by social media influencers like conservatives Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec on X. The original Facebook post appears to be based on claims made by a local extremist at a public meeting with city officials. The presence of conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer on Trump’s plane the day of the debate may also have impacted Trump’s willingness to make the claim publicly.
Republican-aligned figures like the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo put out a call on X for evidence to substantiate Trump’s debate claim, but came up only with an uncorroborated, year-old video of people who look like they are grilling a chicken. “A city spokesperson and Springfield police said they have received no credible reports that pets are being abducted and eaten by the immigrants,” said fact-checking website Politifact, which gave the claim a rating of “Pants on Fire,” meaning that they deemed it entirely untrue.
The Trump campaign’s strategy
Some analysts believe that Trump’s incendiary claim was part of a strategy to keep immigration at the forefront of the election. What Trump and Vance are doing is “using an on-the-ground story with a lot of momentum behind it, basically a viral moment, to direct attention to the broader issue of immigration,” said Northwestern University historian Kathleen Belew in an interview with The New Yorker. The story was “an effective act of misdirection,” said Bloomberg‘s Joshua Green.
The campaign has said that it is using the story to direct attention to issues around immigration the media too often ignores. The claim “comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents,” said vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance to CNN. “I say that we’re ‘creating a story’ meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.” Critics suggested that Vance was admitting that the story was a hoax, while supporters noted that he was merely attributing the rumor to residents of Springfield.