JD Vance’s latest cat flub is bizarre misinformation about migrants eating them

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance — a vocal proponent of conspiracy theories about immigrants “replacing” Americans — is now spreading misinformation about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio killing family pets and protected wildlife.

“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” Vance posted on X on Monday, echoing an unsubstantiated rumor that took off on right-wing social media over the weekend. 

The unnamed “reports” Vance cites are likely from Infowars or the Daily Mail, both of which published thinly sourced posts about Haitian migrants eating pets and wildlife. Both publications reference a Facebook post in which someone claims their neighbor’s daughter’s friend lost her cat — and later found it “hanging from a branch, like you’d do a deer for butchering,” outside a house “where Haitians live.” Local police, however, tell the Springfield News-Sun that there are no reports of pets being stolen and eaten in the community.

Still, the Springfield pet situation is a particularly instructive example of how right-wing media often launders and mainstreams obvious misinformation. The rumor, which reports suggest had been spreading locally for at least a month, was amplified by conservative influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers — and then mainstreamed by politicians including Vance and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and immigration obsessives like Elon Musk.

The News-Sun suggested that the original Facebook post conflated Springfield with Canton, Ohio, a city 175 miles northeast where a woman was recently arrested for allegedly killing and eating a cat in front of multiple people. Right-wing commentator Ian Miles Cheong — who frequently posts about US politics despite living in Malaysia — suggested the woman who ate the cat was Haitian.

That woman, Allexis Ferrell, is a US citizen, according to Daniel Di Martino, a PhD student at Columbia and fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who found her voter registration information. Other reports suggest the rumor began before Ferrell’s arrest. “We get these reports ‘the Haitians are killing ducks in a lot of our parks’ or ‘the Haitians are eating vegetables right out of the aisle at the grocery store,’” Jason Via, Springfield’s deputy director of public safety and operations, told NPR in August. “And we haven’t really seen any of that. It’s really frustrating.”

But the rumor has persisted. One Springfield resident brought it up during an August 27th meeting of Springfield’s City Commission, claiming Haitian migrants were “in the park grabbing up ducks by their neck and cutting their head off and walking off with them and eating them.”

The city commission meetings, which are archived on YouTube, have been a steady source of content for right-wing commentators eager to prove that real Americans are suffering due to the supposedly open border. On September 8th, the X account End Wokeness posted a clip from the commission’s August 27th meeting, amplifying the duck-eating rumor to more than 2.9 million followers. Two days earlier, the same account posted a screenshot of the unsubstantiated Facebook post, claiming “ducks and pets are disappearing” in Springfield. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk reposted the image on September 8th. “Apparently, people’s pet cats are being eaten,” wrote Musk, who often posts about the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. “If not for 𝕏,” End Wokeness posted the following day, “you would have no idea that Haitians were eating cats in Springfield.”

Right-wing misinformation campaigns about migrants are by no means limited to Springfield. Last month, after a video depicting armed men knocking on an apartment door went viral on X, conservative commentators claimed members of a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex in Colorado. End Wokeness claimed gang members had begun collecting rent in a second building. City Journal, the in-house publication of the Manhattan Institute, claimed two apartment complexes were “under siege” by Venezuelan gang members. Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman later said “criminal elements” had taken over buildings in the city, and were extorting residents. Former President Donald Trump parroted the reports, saying Venezuelans were “taking over the whole town.”

In fact, Aurora police told the Associated Press that gang members hadn’t taken over the apartment complexes and weren’t collecting rent. Residents of one building, some of whom are Venezuelan, said the complex’s New York-based management company had neglected repairs. But the rumor continued to spread on X, where it was amplified by Musk. “Unless Trump wins,” he posted, “meet your new building managers.”