Two days after former President Donald Trump in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris amplified a fascist lie that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating “the dogs” and “the cats, the pets of the people that live there,” several buildings in Springfield were evacuated Thursday morning following an emailed bomb threat, according to local officials and media.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott said the police were alerted to a bomb threat at multiple facilities at 8:24 in the morning. The police chief refused to take any questions or elaborate on the email message itself.
Elliott said all the buildings listed in the threat, which included Springfield City Hall, two elementary schools and local Department of Motor Vehicle offices, were evacuated and swept for explosives by police.
While it is unclear if the bomb threats are directly related to the concerted anti-immigrant campaign spearheaded by Trump, his running mate J.D. Vance, neo-Nazis and virtually the entire Republican Party, there is no question a pogrom-like atmosphere against immigrants is being whipped up by large sections of the ruling class in the lead-up to the November election.
Prior to the debate, the Arizona GOP boasted that it paid for 12 billboards across the metro area featuring kittens in cow costumes and the phrase “Eat less Kittens, Vote Republican!”
This disgusting campaign is aimed at dividing the working class while providing fodder for Trump’s claims, should he lose the November election, that the result will be “tainted” due to “illegal immigrants” voting for his opponents. In addition to depressing the vote, Trump and his neo-Nazi advisers are setting the stage for violent mass deportations and the police-state that will accompany it. Speaking at a rally this past Saturday in Wisconsin, Trump said that “getting them [immigrants] out will be a bloody story.”
Trump and the Republicans’ vicious smears have led to increased harassment and violence against local residents of Haitian descent in Springfield. Following the debate, on Wednesday, The Haitian Timesreported that some local residents were being “attacked” and were keeping their kids home from school due to threats.
“She [my niece] was scared, but I told her to go, that God would protect,” one Haitian resident, who did not want to be identified, told the paper. She added, “We’re all victims this morning. They’re attacking us in every way.”
One Haitian woman, who moved to the community six years ago, told the paper her cars had been vandalized twice, yet police did nothing. “I’m going to have to move because this area is no longer good for me,” she told the paper. “I can’t even leave my house to go to Walmart. I’m anxious and scared.”
Vilès Dorsainvil, president of The Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, told The Haitian Times prior to the debate, “People are scared and have been calling me all day because of this,” referring to bogus claims made by Vance and others.
Denise Williams, leader of the Springfield chapter of the NAACP, told the paper that same day, “This is really getting out of hand. [It] is absolutely disturbing. This is a good town. We don’t want them [far-right extremists] to run people off.”
Over the last six years, roughly 20,000 Haitian immigrants have legally migrated to Springfield, Ohio, a de-industrialized town of just under 60,000. Last December, a tragic accident occurred in the town after an immigrant from Haiti crashed his car into a school bus, killing 11-year-old Aiden Clark. This incident has been seized on by neo-Nazis, far-right social media accounts and Republicans to further their anti-immigrant campaign focused on “migrant crime.”
In an impassioned speech delivered before the Springfield City Council on Tuesday, Nathan Clark, father of Aiden, demanded Republican politicians stop using his son’s death to further their political agenda.
Politicians Bernie Moreno [Ohio Republican Senate candidate], Chip Roy [Republican-Texas], J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, they have spoken my son’s name and used his death for political gain. This needs to stop, now. They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the “border crisis” and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members. However they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed, to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio. I will listen to them one more time to hear their apologies.
Nathan added, “My son Aiden Clark was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti. This tragedy is felt all over this community, this state and even the nation. But don’t spin this toward hate. In order to live like Aiden, you need to accept everyone.”
Nathan said his son was “passionate about gardening” and that “he researched other cultures to better appreciate and understand people that he interacted with.
“Please stop the hate,” Clark ended his remarks to applause.
Ignoring Clark’s request, Trump and the Republicans continued to incite hatred against immigrants even after the bomb threats Thursday. On his Truth Social account, Trump shared several AI-generated images of himself rescuing cats and geese from hordes of dark-skinned people before launching into another tirade against immigrants in Springfield. Trump wrote:
Bernie Moreno has a very good chance of winning Ohio against a Radical Left Democrat, Sherrod Brown, with what is happening in Springfield, and other parts of the State. Ohio is being inundated with Illegal Migrants, mostly from Haiti, who are taking over Towns and Villages at a level and rate never seen before.
Trump urged Moreno and Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake to campaign “almost exclusively on the Safety and Security of their States, not allowing Illegal Aliens to get anywhere near Arizona or Ohio, and getting the ones that are already in—OUT!”
The Republicans’ anti-immigrant assault is being carried out with the complicity of the Democratic Party. Despite Trump’s repeated claims to be a “dictator on day one,” Harris has repeatedly pledged to sign a previously negotiated far-right border package that provides no pathway to citizenship but does add an additional 1,500 border police and increase detention facility capacity by 50 percent.
On September 10, Harris tweeted in support of the bill and promoted Republican lies that immigrants are bringing drugs into the country. Harris wrote:
The bill I supported would have added 1,500 border agents. It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States. Donald Trump got on the phone, called out some people in Congress and asked them to kill the bill.
As of this writing Harris has yet to tweet specifically in defense of immigrants in Springfield or anywhere else. In fact, virtually the entire Democratic Party has refused to call out Trump and the Republicans’ neo-Nazi lies.
Instead, Marianne Williamson, one of Joe Biden’s few Democratic challengers in the 2024 primaries, tweeted in support of the anti-Haitian campaign Thursday morning. Williamson declared, “Continuing to dump on Trump because of the ‘eating cats’ issue will create blowback on Nov. 5.”
Combining racism with a plea to listen to neo-Nazis, Williamson added:
Haitian voodoo is in fact real, and to dismiss the story out-of-hand rather than listen to the citizens of Springfield, Ohio confirms in the minds of many voters the stereotype of Democrats as smug elite jerks who think they’re too smart to listen to anyone outside their own silo.
In a statement posted after the Harris-Trump debate, Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate Joseph Kishore denounced the anti-immigrant campaign and called for the development of a political movement of the working class against both capitalist parties.
As the Socialist Equality Party’s candidate for president, I denounce and oppose the fascist campaign being whipped up against Haitian immigrants, many of whom work in auto plants and other industries side by side with native-born workers. Our campaign fights for the unity of workers of all races and nationalities, on the basis of our common class interests.
