Racial tensions in Springfield have simmered for months. Trump’s rhetoric now has Haitians there in a full-blown ‘panic’

After Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance helped supercharge a false, racist rumor that Haitian refugees in small-town Ohio were stealing and consuming people’s household pets, the fiction was duly parrotted by running mate Donald Trump during a nationally televised debate against Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” the former president insisted, wildly, at the Tuesday evening event. “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating, 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.”

A day earlier, the Trump-Vance campaign issued a press release baselessly accusing “unvetted” Haitians of consuming not only domestic animals, but hunting and eating local wildlife, such as ducks and geese, as well.

The compounding myths, which the leader of notorious neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe gleefully took credit for having helped popularize, were swiftly debunked by, among others, the Springfield mayor, city manager, and police department.

But the claims have not only inflamed existing tensions in Springfield, they have also managed to further traumatize a group of people who fled civil war and ceaseless gang violence for the sleepy Rust Belt town of 58,000.

“It’s creating so much panic in the community,” Springfield resident Viles Dorsainvil told The Independent. “… The words that come out of their mouths matter. They are looking for the highest office in America. They have the obligation to do better, because words are powerful.”

Dorsainvil, 38, emigrated to the US from Haiti in 2020 and moved to Springfield in 2021. He works for the county, processing people’s applications for public assistance, and