Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has doubled down on false claims that migrants are eating household pets in an Ohio town, as city officials repeatedly debunked the rumours.
The baseless claims have led to several security threats, and on Sunday Wittenberg University in Springfield said it had to cancel events because of a threat targeting members of its Haitian community.
Appearing on Sunday talk shows, Vance defended the false stories, saying “media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes”.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he told CNN.
“It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”
Vance is a US senator who represents Ohio.
He first brought up the animal-eating claims last week, before Trump amplified them at his first presidential debate against Kamala Harris.
Since then, Springfield city officials have repeatedly debunked the claims.
Mayor Rob Rue told the BBC that the conspiracy theories – and Trump’s pledge to “mass deport” migrants from Springfield – were hurting the town.
“People’s pets are safe in Springfield, Ohio, ” Rue told the BBC’s Newshour programme. “We reached out to the JD Vance Campaign to let them know that we do not have any evidence that has happened, and I’ve made it known in multiple interviews that this is absolutely not true.”
“We need folks to understand, especially those that have a microphone that’s being listened to around the world, they need to understand the weight of their words and how it can negatively affect communities.”
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, on ABC’s This Week called the rumours “a piece of garbage that was simply not true”.
Springfield had to evacuate three schools and other city buildings last week due to threats, at least one of which made disparaging comments about Haitians.
Police at Wittenberg University said in a campus alert that an email sent on Saturday threatened a shooting the following day.
“The message targeted Haitian members of our community, ” police said. “All students, faculty and staff should exercise extreme precaution and be alert to all your surroundings.”
Springfield police have also said they received calls on Saturday about members of the Proud Boys marching in the city, after a video circulated on social media with a group of men carrying flags and wearing logos associated with the far-right group.
Vance told CBS News on Sunday that he did not “align himself” with the Proud Boys but said the real problem was Harris’s “open borders”.
Trump, like Vance, has doubled down on the baseless claims and said the town had been “destroyed” by immigration.
Campaigning Friday in California, Trump vowed there would be “large deportations” from Springfield if elected. He has promised to deport millions of undocumented migrants nationwide.
Springfield, a rust belt city in south-west Ohio, is home to about 60,000 people and has seen thousands of immigrants arrive in recent years.
Many migrants in the town are from Haiti and have legal permission to be in the US under a federal programme for Haitians.
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