Are migrants really eating pets like cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, like former President Donald Trump claimed in last night’s debate?
No. They’re not.
According to reporting by the Springfield News-Sun, the local paper in Springfield, “The Springfield Police Division said Monday they have received no reports related to pets being stolen and eaten.”
The reason that the this unfounded rumor spread like wildfire across the internet is generally credited to two incidents — an unfounded post on social media that “claimed that their [the poster’s] neighbor’s daughter’s friend had lost her cat and found it hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home being carved up to be eaten,” and a woman in Canton, Ohio, that did allegedly eat a cat.
The alleged incident in Canton, however, was committed by a woman who is not a migrant, according to CBS News.
“Some social media users shared body camera footage of an unrelated incident in which an Ohio woman was accused of killing and eating a cat in Canton, a city more than 170 miles away from Springfield. Public records indicate the woman in the footage, Allexis Telia Ferrell, is not a migrant and has lived in Ohio for at least 18 years,” CBS News wrote.
Trump backed the false claim in the presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, saying, “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.”
ABC News host David Muir was quick to fact check Trump’s comment, to which Trump rebuffed.
But this is not the first time that someone in the Trump campaign claimed that migrants were eating pets.
Trump’s vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance, posted on X that “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
There are no factual reports of migrants eating pets at this time.
