Immigration is seen as a critical issue in a nail-biter of an election, and the two candidates square off Tuesday night in their first and potentially only presidential debate…reports Asian Lite News
Top Republicans peddled false claims denigrating immigrants Monday, saying Haitian arrivals are stealing and eating pets — a conspiracy theory, debunked by authorities, that went viral as Donald Trump stokes fears ahead of November’s election.
Trump running mate J.D. Vance and Republican lawmakers, officials and influencers have pushed unfounded rumors out of Springfield, Ohio that have thrust the city’s growing Haitian population into the center of the presidential race.
“Protect our ducks and kittens in Ohio!” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee posted on their X account, with an obviously fake image of Trump rescuing a white duck and a striped cat.
“Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us,” Senator Ted Cruz posted over an image of kittens.
Republicans appeared to be using the stories, which have clear racial undertones, to fuel a political attack against Trump’s rival Kamala Harris to suggest she has failed to rein in illegal immigration during her three-plus years as vice president.
Immigration is seen as a critical issue in a nail-biter of an election, and the two candidates square off Tuesday night in their first and potentially only presidential debate.
Some right-wing social media accounts had amplified a news report about a woman in Ohio allegedly eating and killing a pet cat. And while no evidence emerged linking the woman to migrants or the Haitian community, footage of her arrest was widely shared by influencers.
City law enforcement quickly debunked the conspiracy theories. “There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” Springfield police said in a statement, adding there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaged in illegal activities like squatting in front of residents’ homes.
But the disinformation posts have snowballed, having been viewed millions of times. X owner Elon Musk, who recently endorsed Trump and has 197 million followers on the platform formerly known as Twitter, has reposted some of the images.
Vance, who is from Ohio, took to X to claim that “Haitian illegal immigrants (are) draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.
“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
Trump himself weighed in Monday, posting on Truth Social: “20,000 Haitian migrants were dumped into the small town of Springfield, Ohio,” referring to the large influx of migrants from the impoverished Caribbean nation in recent years.
Social services, schools and housing have been stressed in the city for years, with some pointing to migration as a factor. The issues have been brought up at city functions, including an August 27 Springfield City Commission.
Leading Democrats largely have not addressed the pet theft claims.
Trump’s rhetoric turns ominous as voting nears
With early voting fast approaching, the rhetoric by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has turned more ominous with a pledge to prosecute anyone who “cheats” in the election, in the same way, he believes they did in 2020, when he falsely claimed he won and attacked those who stood by their accurate vote tallies.
He also told a gathering of police officers last Friday that they should “watch for the voter fraud,” an apparent attempt to enlist law enforcement that would be legally dubious.
Trump has contended, without providing evidence, that he lost the 2020 election only because of cheating by Democrats, election officials and other, unspecified forces.
On Saturday, Trump promised that this year those who cheat “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” should he win in November. He said he was referencing everyone from election officials to attorneys, political staffers and donors.
“Those involved in unscrupulous behaviour will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country,” Trump wrote in the post on his social media network Truth Social that he later also posted on X, the site once known as Twitter.
The former President’s warning – he prefaced it with the words “CEASE & DESIST” – is the latest increase in rhetoric that mimics that used by authoritarian leaders.
Election experts and several state and local election officials were quick to condemn the former president’s comment, which they viewed in part as an attempt at intimidation as offices are preparing for the start of voting.
Barb Byrum, the clerk of Ingham County, Michigan, said she thinks Trump’s post is an attack on democracy aimed at driving election officials out of the profession.
“But I know that we are not going to be bullied,” said Byrum, a Democrat. “We are civil servants that signed up to make sure every qualified registered voter has the opportunity to exercise their right to vote, and we will do that.”
To be clear, Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden in both the Electoral College and in the popular vote, where Biden received 7 million more votes. Trump’s own attorney general said there was no evidence of widespread fraud, Trump lost dozens of lawsuits challenging the results and an Associated Press investigation showed there was no level of fraud that could have tipped the election.
Additionally, multiple reviews, recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump contested his loss all confirmed Biden’s win.
Trump, who has spoken warmly of authoritarians and mused recently that “sometimes you need a strongman,” has already pledged to prosecute his political adversaries if he returns to power. His allies have drawn up plans to make federal prosecutors more able to target the president’s opponents.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gestures as he departs a campaign event at Central Wisconsin Airport.
In one possible conservative outline for a new Trump administration known as Project 2025, a former Trump Justice Department official writes that Pennsylvania’s top election official should have been prosecuted for a policy dispute – in deciding that voters there have a chance to fix signature errors on their mail ballots.
Trump has disavowed Project 2025, but his rhetoric matches that example, said Justin Levitt, a former Justice Department official and Biden White House staffer who now teaches law at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles.
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