For more than a week, Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio, has been tweeting about the influx of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. It started with a false rumor on a Facebook post about migrants eating cats. Former president Donald Trump, in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, then asserted: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Amid the backlash, Vance has doubled down, insisting he has raised legitimate issues that were ignored or belittled by the media. Here’s an assessment of the facts — and misinformation — in his posts on X.
“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”
— Sept. 9 (11 million views)
Analysis: This tweet was posted at 10:22 a.m. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that on the morning of Sept. 9, Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck fielded a call from a Vance staff member asking whether there was any truth to the rumors. “I told him no,” Hack said. “There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”
A Vance spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Vance has not taken down the tweet, even though his staff knew the rumors had been denied around the time he posted it.
“In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false. Do you know what’s confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here. That local health services have been overwhelmed. That communicable diseases — like TB and HIV — have been on the rise. That local schools have struggled to keep up with newcomers who don’t know English. That rents have risen so fast that many Springfield families can’t afford to put a roof over their head.”
— Sept. 10 (16 million views)
Analysis: There is a significant factual inaccuracy in this tweet, which attempts to provide some cover for the first tweet by acknowledging that it’s possible the rumors might be false.
Vance wrote that “a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here.” But it was an accident — a Haitian migrant, in the country legally but with a foreign driver’s license, accidentally veered into a school bus, killing a child. Nathan Clark, whose son Aiden died in the collision, issued a public plea that his son’s death not be labeled a murder. “Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose,” he said. A Vance spokesman noted that the migrant was found guilty of aggravated vehicular homicide.
The New York Times on Sept. 3 reported on Springfield and the Haitian influx, and there is a basis for some of Vance’s statements. According to the New York Times report:
- “The community health clinic saw a 13-fold increase in Haitian patients between 2021 and 2023, from 115 to 1,500, overwhelming its staff and budget.”
- “The school district has hired about two dozen teachers who are certified to teach English as a second language and several Haitian-Creole interpreters, thanks to federal and state pandemic-related funds.”
- “Michelle Lee-Hall, executive director of Springfield’s housing authority, said that the affordability problem had been aggravated by landlords pivoting to Haitians who were willing to pay higher rent.”
As for the rise in tuberculosis and HIV, the Vance spokesman did not respond to questions about how this could be attributed to Haitians. Clark County health records show the numbers for TB are low, so small changes look like big percentage jumps. There were three cases in 2021, two in 2022, six in 2023 and a preliminary count of four in the first half of 2024. As for HIV, there were 12 cases in 2021, 15 in 2022, 29 in 2023 and a preliminary count of 26 in the first half of 2024. But overall, cases of sexually transmitted diseases have fallen, records show, with syphilis in an especially sharp decline — from 126 cases in 2022 to 45 in 2023. A preliminary count for 2024 recorded 21 syphilis cases.
“In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime. This is what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community. Kamala Harris’s immigration policy aims to do this to every town in our country.”
— Sept. 13 (13.8 million views)
Analysis: Vance falsely claimed there was a “massive” rise in communicable diseases. The county health records show a decline in reportable infectious-disease cases per 100,000 people, with the case rate in 2023 the lowest since 2015. (Vance’s spokesman said he was referring to TB and HIV, discussed above.)
His source for rent prices was a Reuters report, citing a Zillow rent index, showing an increase in rental costs of 25 percent from May 2022 to July 2, compared with a national average of a 10 percent increase.
As for crime, Springfield’s annual report shows that public service calls fluctuated, from 59,520 in 2021 to 50,501 in 2022, and 62,521 in 2023. Vance’s spokesman pointed to data on the Ohio crime reporting system for murders, violent crime and property crime.
The number of murders was five in 2021, six in 2022, and nine in 2023 — so small that rendering a percentage increase would be misleading. There were 704 incidents of violent crime in 2021, 743 in 2022 and 751 in 2023, while reported incidents of property crime was 2,388 in 2021, 2,725 in 2022 and 2,837 in 2023. It’s misleading to make conclusions from such a limited set of crime data and, again, there is no documented link to Haitian migrants.
Finally, there’s the question of how many Haitians have moved to Springfield. Vance uses a high estimate of 20,000.
In a July letter to Congress, seeking financial assistance, Heck wrote that “the Haitian population has increased to 15,000 — 20,000 over the last four years.”
But the city of Springfield’s website says there are “12,000 to 15,000” immigrants. “Although it is impossible to provide an exact number, based on data provided from numerous sources, such as the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Springfield City Schools, area health care providers and social services agencies, the total immigrant population is estimated to be approximately 12,000 — 15,000 in Clark County,” the website says on a page devoted to questions about migrants, not specifying whether all were Haitians.
Heck did not respond to an email asking about the discrepancy.
Public information about enrollment in Springfield schools shows that the head count has increased in recent years but is still below the level in 2020. There were 7,716 students in 2019-2020, but that dropped to 7,099 in 2020-2021, the school year after the pandemic. There were 7,107 students in 2021-2022, 7,277 in 2022-2023 and 7,415 in 2023-2024.
“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves. Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”
— Sept. 14 (6.4 million views)
Analysis: Vance quickly elevated a post by right-wing influencer Christopher Rufo, who claimed he had found evidence that “African” migrants in Dayton had eaten cats. Rufo touted an unconfirmed story, with a fuzzy video, and a dubious link to Springfield.
The same day, Dayton Police Chief Kamran Afzal issued a statement denouncing Rufo’s report: “We stand by our immigrant community and there is no evidence to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets. Seeing politicians or other individuals use outlandish information to appeal to their constituents is disheartening.”
“Kamala Harris dropped 20,000 Haitian migrants into a small Ohio town and chaos has ensued. Housing shortages have caused rents to skyrocket, hospitals are overrun, schools are ill-equipped to teach students who don’t speak English, and the roads are unsafe as unlicensed drivers have caused a massive increase in roadway accidents. It’s a disgusting indictment on our news industry, but I’m going to continue speaking up for my constituents and the disastrous effects that Kamala Harris’s open border policies are having on their lives.”
— Sept. 15 (4.1 million views)
Analysis: Vance refers to a “massive increase in roadway accidents,” but the Ohio crash statistics system indicates that the number of motor vehicle crashes recorded in Clark County has declined since 2021. The Vance spokesman pointed to recent statements by Springfield’s mayor about “reckless operation speeding and distracted driving of motor vehicles” and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, of “a very significant problem” because, he said, many Haitian migrants have “not gone through really any formal courses” to drive in the United States.
Vance also falsely said “the American media didn’t give a damn about any of this until President Donald Trump mentioned Springfield at the debate.” As noted, the New York Times published a lengthy article — which appeared on the front page — a week before the debate.
“The American media has been caught laundering verified foreign disinformation to smear me and President Trump and it’s disgusting.”
— Sept. 17 (1.9 million views)
Analysis: After bomb threats repeatedly forced the evacuation of schools and government offices, Vance posted a clip of himself making this statement: “And you know what the governor of Ohio came out yesterday and said? Every single one of those bomb threats was a hoax. And all of those bomb threats came from foreign countries. So the American media, for three days, has been lying and saying that Donald Trump and I are inciting bomb threats when in reality the American media has been laundering foreign disinformation. It is disgusting.”
This is incorrect. Dan Tierney, press secretary for DeWine, told The Fact Checker that some calls — less than five — were made from within the United States. Of 34 bomb threats, the “vast majority” were from foreign counties, most from a single country that he would not identify. But Vance chose to ignore that at least some calls were not from overseas — and that the calls didn’t take place until he and Trump trafficked in misinformation.
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