Authorities rebut claims that Haitian immigrants are eating cats, waterfowl in Ohio town

Social media users recently flooded platforms with unfounded rumors about Haitian immigrants in a small Ohio town. 

The immigrants are feasting on neighborhood pets, as well as ducks and geese at local parks, the social media posts said. 

But a city spokesperson told PolitiFact there are no credible reports this is happening.

A Sept. 6 Facebook post said, "Springfield is a small town in Ohio. 4 years ago they had 60K residents. Under (Kamala) Harris and (Joe) Biden, 20,000 Haitian immigrants were shipped to the town. Now ducks and pets are disappearing." 

The post included a screenshot from a private Facebook group in which a person wrote that a neighbor's daughter’s friend came home from work to find a pet cat butchered and hanging from a tree in a Haitian neighbor’s yard. The post’s author said Haitians were doing the same to dogs and ducks and geese at a local park. Next to the screenshot was a photo of a Black man walking down a street holding what appears to be a dead goose. 

We found one or both images being shared in other social media posts. Another X post shared a video of what it said was a Haitian immigrant eating a neighbor’s dead cat.

The Facebook post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

(Facebook screenshot)

The claim that Haitian immigrants are eating wildlife and pets in Springfield was also widely shared by conservative influencers such as Charlie Kirk and X owner Elon Musk, and political entities and figures including the House Judiciary Committee and vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio.

"Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio," Vance wrote Sept. 9 on X. "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?" he wrote, in an apparent reference to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Besides the social media posts, there are articles on conservative media sites reporting on a resident’s claims at an Aug. 27 Springfield City Commission meeting. Some of the articles also share the screenshot of the Facebook group post and the man holding a dead bird.

At that hearing, Anthony Harris, a man describing himself as a social media influencer, said the immigrants are in the park grabbing ducks by their necks and cutting their heads off. He provided no evidence to support his claim. We contacted him via Facebook private message but received no response.

The influx of migrants into the community has sparked controversy, particularly in August 2023, after a minivan driven by a Haitian immigrant who had a foreign license not valid in Ohio struck a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy, The New York Times reported.

A Springfield city website estimates the total immigrant population in Clark County is 12,000 to 15,000 people, but The New York Times reported that some city officials have put the number at 20,000.

Since 2023, some Haitians have come to the U.S. through the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration parole program that allows people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and their immediate family members to request to come to the United States legally. They can be paroled into the United States for up to two years.

But are the social media claims true about the immigrants eating their neighbors’ pets and dining on local waterfowl? City spokesperson Karen Graves, in a statement to PolitiFact, said no.

"In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community," Graves said.

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Nor are there reports about ducks and geese being killed and eaten, Graves said.

Springfield police referred us to Graves, but earlier told a local news outlet the department had received no reports of pets being stolen and eaten.

There are also no verified instances of immigrants squatting or littering in front of residents’ homes or disrupting traffic, the statement said, referring to other recent claims.

In the social media posts sharing the claim, the screenshot of a warning to neighbors appears to come from Springfield Ohio Crime & Information, a private Facebook group. We messaged a group administrator to find out more about the post but received no response.

The photo of a man carrying a dead bird was, according to an August Reddit post, taken in Columbus, Ohio, which is about 48 miles east of Springfield. 

Finally, the X post video of a woman being arrested for killing a neighbor’s cat is real, but it didn’t happen in Springfield. Allexis Telia Ferrell was charged with killing the cat in Canton, Ohio, which is about 173 miles northeast of Springfield. There’s no evidence she is a Haitian immigrant.

Social media posts claim that pets and wildlife in Springfield, Ohio, are being eaten by Haitian immigrants.

A Springfield spokesperson said the city has received no such reports, and Springfield police told a local news outlet the department has received no reports of pets being stolen and eaten. 

It’s possible that residents who witnessed such events didn’t file police reports. But the burden of proof is on the speaker, and the speakers making the claims either provided no evidence, or included a photo that is not from Springfield. 

We rate the claim False.

PolitiFact Staff Writer Maria Briceño and Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.