Springfield, Ohio – Vilbrun Dorsainvil said he fled his home country, Haiti, after someone tried to kidnap him.

Three years later, he says he’s afraid for his and his community’s safety in the United States.

“Before, I was not. But right now, I can say I am afraid,” Dorsainvil said. “Right now, I’m afraid there may be a mass shooting on us. That would be terrible.”

Dorsainvil’s fear started during ABC’s September 10 presidential debate from Philadelphia, when former President Donald Trump repeated a debunked claim about migrants in this small city about 72km (45 miles) west of Columbus, the state’s capital. Trump referred to “Springfield” three times.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” the Republican nominee said. “They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

ABC host David Muir fact-checked Trump onstage. City officials had debunked the claim.

“There have not been any credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said at a city commission meeting a few hours before the debate.

The Republican governor of Ohio, where Springfield is located, also dispelled the claims that Haitians were eating pet animals. “I think we should take the word of the city manager and the mayor that they’ve found no credible evidence of that story of Haitians eating pets,” Mike DeWine was quoted as saying by ABC news site.

No correction could stop the real-world chaos that followed.

On September 12, Springfield City Hall closed following a bomb threat “sent to multiple agencies and media outlets.” Rue told The Washington Post the threats “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community”.

On September 13, the morning after Trump repeated the false claim at his Tucson, Arizona, rally, the Springfield City School District evacuated two elementary schools following an email threat. A middle school had been closed all day because of threats.

PolitiFact visited Springfield to follow the aftermath of Trump’s misinformation in a county that he carried by 60 percent in 2020. Journalists with cameras, tripods and microphones filled the small city’s centre after the debate.

Many residents seemed hesitant to speak to news outlets; they didn’t want themselves or their small business in the conversation.

Some residents told PolitiFact there has been a clear increase in the number of Haitian migrants moving to the city in the past few years. Some residents expressed concerns about road safety and resource constraints in recent months as a result. None of them said they’d witnessed or had evidence of people taking pets or wildlife and eating them.

A mural adorns a wall in the city of Springfield, Ohio, September 11, 2024 [Julio-Cesar Chavez/Reuters]

Emma Miller, a small business owner and lifelong Springfield resident, said she and her husband started an English as a second language class for their Haitian neighbours. The classes had been growing.

“But this past week, only about half the people showed up because they genuinely didn’t feel safe leaving their houses,” Miller said.

The class was before the debate.

How a claim in a Facebook group worsened tensions

Dorsainvil, who was a doctor in Haiti, now works as a nursing assistant at Springfield Regional Medical Centre. He was at work a few weeks ago when a co-worker first showed him a rumour on Facebook about Haitians eating their neighbours’ pets.

According to local news outlets, the claim originated on Facebook in late August. A user said her neighbour told her that her daughter’s friend had lost a cat and she had found it “where Haitians live” hanging from a tree branch and being carved to eat.

NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, interviewed the original poster who said she had no evidence of the event.

Dorsainvil said his co-worker’s wife commented on Facebook posts, saying the claim was untrue and that she worked with many Haitians.

“When I heard this kind of stuff, I just laughed in my mind, because I know it’s not true,” Dorsainvil said. “It’s just nonsense.”

The rumour quickly gained traction online.

On September 6, the verified X account End Wokeness posted a screenshot of the Facebook post. The post, which has 4.9 million views, is what first made the claim go viral, said Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University’s Watt Family Innovation Centre Media Forensics Hub.

Trump’s running mate from Ohio, US Senator JD Vance, further amplified the claim on X.

After being corrected by local leaders, Vance persisted, saying his office had received calls that Haitians were abducting pets and wildlife.

“It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumours will turn out to be false,” he said, before describing “overwhelmed” school, housing and health services.

Joshua Darr, a Syracuse University political communications expert, said politicians have the potential to be the most consequential misinformation spreaders because of their elite status.

Dorsainvil’s older brother, Viles Dorsainvil, said he left his shift working as a bilingual specialist at Ohio’s Department of Job and Family Services early when he saw Vance’s X post.

“I was so perturbed and disturbed at the same time,” Viles Dorsainvil said. “I could not concentrate to do my own job.”

As the founder of the city’s Haitian Community Help and Support Centre, he started getting calls from fellow Haitians in Springfield asking whether they were safe or should leave.

Viles Dorsainvil said he tried to keep them calm, telling them the comments were part of a political agenda.

“But I think that those leaders should do better,” he said.

A false narrative heightens real tensions

In the past few years, a large number of Haitians have moved to Springfield, which had a population of 58,000 in the 2020 census. The city’s population is 70 percent white, in a state that is nearly 80 percent white.

At a September 10 news conference, Rue said the city has added 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants in the past four years. Most immigrants in Springfield are Haitian, but not all.

Many Haitians, such as the Dorsainvil brothers, fled their country following years of political unrest. In 2023, the Biden administration started a humanitarian parole programme allowing eligible Haitians to live and work in the US for two years. He later extended Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status, another programme that allows Haitians to legally remain in the US temporarily.

Haitians have chosen Springfield because of its “growing economy and affordable housing”, Melanie Wilt, Clark County commission president, said at the September 10 news conference.

Word of mouth has also played a role in attracting more Haitians. Viles Dorsainvil moved to Springfield in January 2021 because of what he called a “job surge”. In April 2021, his brother, Vilbrun, joined him. Vilbrun said Viles, his friends and other family members told him “it would be a good place to live”.

The large increase in Haitian immigrants in a short time has strained city resources. The rumours about pets distract from the city’s issues around housing, schools and “our overwhelmed healthcare system”, Rue said at the September 10 news conference.

Dr Amit Seegala, the director of the Rocking Horse Community Health Centre, told WHIO-TV in August that she is treating more patients than ever, and that the centre has had to hire more staff, especially for translation services (Haitians speak primarily Haitian Creole). In May, the Clark County health department launched a health testing clinic to help offset the strain on the healthcare system; it provides vaccinations and medical health screenings.

The day after the presidential debate, Governor DeWine announced $2.5m in state money to expand primary healthcare access in Springfield. The state has also started initiatives to increase translation services in government offices and provide driver education and English classes to Haitians.

“I want the people of Springfield and Clark County to know that as we move forward, we will continue to do everything we can to help the community deal with this surge of migrants,” DeWine’s statement said. “The federal government has not demonstrated that they have any kind of plan to deal with the issue. We will not walk away.”

Trump referred to the Haitians as unlawful at a September 13 news conference and promised to carry out “large deportations from Springfield, Ohio”.

“We’re going to get these people out,” Trump said from his golf resort near Los Angeles.

The Springfield residents we spoke to mentioned growing animosity towards Haitians.

Darin Preston, a Springfield resident who was walking downtown, said he had no firsthand knowledge of the rumours but said they were “probably” true.

“I just don’t trust them,” Preston said. “It’s like every petrol station I go into, they own it. I mean it’s everywhere.”

Viles Dorsainvil opened the Haitian support centre last year after a Haitian drove a minivan into a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy, to “see what we can do to better address the situation and try to better give orientation to the newcomers”.

The boy’s father has criticised Trump and Vance for using his son as a “political tool”. At the September 10 city commission meeting, he said he wished his son “was killed by a 60-year-old white man”, so that “the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone”.

Springfield had been in the middle of the national immigration debate long before Trump started talking about the city. National news outlets have reported on Springfield’s growing Haitian community for weeks.

Hearing Trump repeat the false rumour, “my heart kind of sunk”, Miller, the city resident, said, “just because it’s already a really tense situation here, and the more that it’s been in the news, the worse it’s gotten”.

Miller said, despite being at the forefront of a wacky story, “Springfield remains a really good place to live”.

“When people only hear this about it, they get it in their head that it’s this like war zone,” Miller said, “and there is a notable difference, but it is not something that negatively affects our lives on a day-to-day basis.”

“I’ve really enjoyed getting to know all our Haitian neighbours.”