Trump's Controversial Claims About Haitian Immigrants And The Political Fallout

Following false claims from former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, Michael Cohen explained on Saturday "the goal" of Trump's talking points. Amid the 2024 presidential election where immigration is a hot topic issue, the city has found itself in the middle of a political firestorm after false claims were made that Haitian migrants, who are in the United States legally, have been killing pets and eating them.

City officials have debunked these rumors, but they continue to spread, especially after Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, repeated them during his presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris on September 10. Trump claimed, "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."

In a recent post on X, formerly Twitter, Vance stated that his office has received "many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who've said their neighbors' pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants." This statement has contributed to the growing tension surrounding the issue.

On Thursday, Vivek Ramaswamy, a conservative entrepreneur and politician who ran for the Republican Party's nomination earlier this year and later endorsed Trump, visited Springfield for a town hall where he was confronted with the aftermath of these claims. He remarked, "So, when people are having, exchanging heated thoughts about an important subject affecting Americans, they're going to say things in a way that wasn't practiced, rehearsed or tested through consultant-vetting and filters. And I think that's a good thing."

Meanwhile, during a rally in New York on Wednesday, Trump announced that he would be visiting Springfield in the coming weeks. In a Saturday interview with MSNBC's The Weekend, Cohen discussed the fallout from the baseless claims and pointed to Ramaswamy's recent town hall visit, adding that Trump's campaign "hands out talking points" with the goal of "mashing in as many of these ridiculous" messages as possible.

Cohen elaborated, "What Vivek Ramaswamy is doing and, please understand I know from my personal experiences, what he is doing is that every day the Trump campaign hands out talking points and the goal is to mash in as many of these ridiculous, racist, sexist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, antisemitic messages that they possibly can in one single sentence, that's the goal." He further stated, "The more you do that, the more Donald Trump appreciates you, and the higher you get elevated until you don't do it, then you fall off the ladder."

Cohen, who is now a vocal critic of Trump, previously worked as his lawyer and testified as a star witness against the former president in his May criminal hush money trial. He has pleaded guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress.

Newsweek has reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment.

Cohen's remarks come after Springfield's city hall had to be evacuated last week due to a bomb threat, which officials said included "hateful language toward immigrants and Haitians in our community," sent to it, along with the Clark County courthouse and two elementary schools.

Ohio's Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, defended Haitian immigrants in his state during an interview last week on ABC News' This Week. "I think it's unfortunate that this came up," the governor said. "What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence, with a lot of companies coming in."

This comes after half a century of economic decline, Springfield worked hard to lure back the manufacturing industry. The plan worked and began creating jobs that attracted immigrants. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Haitian migrants have moved to the city, which had a population of just under 60,000 in 2020, over the space of four years, city officials say.

They are in the country legally, the City of Springfield's Immigration FAQ page says, many under the Immigration Parole Program, which, under certain conditions, allows noncitizens to remain in the U.S. temporarily without meeting standard visa or immigration requirements.

Where Did the 'Eating the Pets' Claim Originate?

A Springfield resident by the name of Erika Lee made a Facebook post alleging that local Haitian immigrants were "eating pets," which led to significant national attention on the small city. Her post detailed the disappearance of a neighbor's cat and included her neighbor's suspicions that their Haitian residents were involved in the incident.

She admits that she had no direct evidence supporting such a claim and that the incident has left her ridden with guilt and anxiety due to the controversy it generated. "It just exploded into something I didn't mean to happen," Lee told NBC News last week.

According to NewsGuard, an organization dedicated to combating internet misinformation, Lee was one of the first to spread the baseless rumor on social media, the screenshots of which were widely shared. The neighbor, identified as Kimberly Newton, reportedly got the information about the alleged incident from a third party, as per NewsGuard's findings and reported by NBC News.