In the Sept. 10 presidential debate, former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, falsely asserted that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats.”
No evidence supports his assertion that Springfield pets are vulnerable to predatory migrants.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Let’s settle a few things first: The Haitian migrants in Springfield are lawfully present in country under temporary protected status. Furthermore, Haitian migrants have contributed substantially to the Springfield economy, receiving praise from local businesses and public officials. Nevertheless, Trump and his vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, have doubled down on the debunked claim — the latter stating he would continue to “create stories” to influence media coverage. On Tuesday, a Haitian nonprofit filed a criminal complaint against Trump and Vance related to the claims.
Trump expanded the scope his hateful rhetoric after the debate. He now claims that Haitian migrants have invaded Charleroi, Pennsylvania, bringing “lawless gangs” and “massive crime.” He also contends that they have taken jobs from local residents and left the town “virtually bankrupt.” Members of the Charleroi community have condemned his assertions as blatant falsehoods.
This controversy involves two important issues that have received insufficient attention. First, Trump’s disparagement of Haitian migrants is part of a highly problematic strategy designed to stoke racism by associating migrants of color with a variety of societal problems, including crime and disease. Second, his racist depiction of migrants mirrors a historical pattern of xenophobia and racism in law and policy that originated in the 19th century.
In his first stump speech in 2015, Trump argued that Mexican migrants bring “drugs” and “crime” to the United States and accused them of being “rapists.” He continues to link migrants of color with crime and other social ills throughout his campaign. Early in his presidency, Trump and his advisers proposed halting entry by numerous categories of migrants, including political refugees. He also fulfilled a campaign promise to “ban Muslims” from entry. Despite Trump’s extensive record of explicit bias against Muslims, the Supreme Court validated the ban after legal advisers deleted explicit references to religion. Federal law, however, prohibited him from turning away asylum-seekers.
He later exploited the coronavirus pandemic to close ports of entry to migrants. In 2020, many public health experts argued that opposition to COVID-prevention protocols by Trump and state Republican leaders contributed to soaring cases and rates of infection. Trump, however, blamed the poor numbers on expanded access to testing and returned to his frequent scapegoat: migrants. Trump employed xenophobic language to discuss the pandemic, describing the coronavirus as “the Chinese virus.” After he and others popularized this moniker, anti-Asian hate crimes spiked, prompting Congress to enact legislation requiring law enforcement agencies to track and remedy the surging violence. Declaring a health emergency in March 2020, he issued an order excluding from entry noncitizens who lacked visas or valid travel documents. This policy did not provide an exception for asylum-seekers, which disparately affected migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.
Most perniciously, Trump continually invokes criminality to foment anti-immigrant hostility. In February, Trump and other politicians argued the death of University of Georgia student Laken Riley demonstrated the dangers of immigration. Jose Ibarra, who has been charged in Riley’s death, allegedly entered the country illegally after traveling from Venezuela. Riley’s tragic death became a cause célèbres for opponents of immigration — even though Georgia Bureau of Investigation data indicate that one person is murdered every 12 hours on average in the state. Broader statistics demonstrate immigrants have a lower propensity for crime than U.S. citizens. Yet, citizen criminals are virtually invisible in political debates. The media, law enforcement and politicians only refer to the citizenship or immigration status of criminals or suspects who are undocumented. This distorted coverage stigmatizes migrants.
The association of migrants of color with crime rests on long-standing stereotypes of people of color having the propensity for violence and criminality. These stereotypes have justified many of the nation’s most horrific practices, including lynching, enslavement, discriminatory criminal law and segregation.
Westward expansion of the United States attracted Chinese migrants who supplied cheap labor for many industries, especially as enslavement ended. Initially, the Chinese received praise for their industriousness. During slower economic times, however, racism fueled violence, hostility and legal exclusion. White people invoked a battery of stereotypes to justify the ejectment of Chinese migrants and prohibition of their entry to the United States. Racist propaganda portrayed the Chinese as the “Yellow Peril,” maligning their attire, physical structure, religion and performance of gender. One insidious stereotype described the Chinese as rat-eaters. The pervasiveness of this slur is demonstrated by a historical advertisement for a rodent-killing product “Rough on Rats” that depicted a Chinese man dangling a rat above his opened mouth. The product’s slogan “They Must Go” borrowed a phrase frequently employed by opponents of Chinese migrants.
Nineteenth-century legal institutions validated these racist stereotypes to rationalize anti-immigrant policies. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring entry of most Chinese laborers to the United States. In 1889, the Supreme Court upheld the law, finding that the “differences of race” posed problems that justified racial discrimination. The court specifically found that Chinese migrants “remained strangers in the land,” making it “impossible for them to assimilate with our people or to make any change in their habits or modes of living.”
Though explicit references to racial difference have become less acceptable, racism still fosters resentment toward immigrants of color. In the mid-20th century, “Operation Wetback” facilitated the roundup and deportation of thousands of Mexican migrants who had lawfully entered the country to provide cheap labor during an economic boom. Similarly, the 1980 Mariel Boatlift, which involved the influx of poorer Cubans of African descent, fueled hostility toward migrants in Florida. Haitian migration in the 1990s led to the enactment of harsh immigration policies, including anticrime measures based on the false depiction of migrants of color as criminals. And today, opponents of immigration contend Haitian migrants engage in harmful practices — such as stealing and eating neighbors’ pets — that are fundamentally incompatible with Americanness. These migrants, like many before them, are considered outsiders. Their mere presence in the United States transgresses the color line — or as Trump has frequently stated that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Rather than abandoning or even tempering his harmful rhetoric, Trump has stepped up his attacks on migrants and entered into extremely concerning and horrific territory. During a recent interview with Sharyl Attkisson, Trump asserted he could easily deport millions of undocumented people because “local police know their names, and they know their serial numbers.” This Hitlerian language evokes memories of the Holocaust, one of the most despicable moments in world history. Although Trump and his defenders resist such comparisons, his statement regarding serial numbers is squarely in line with the attitudes and practices Nazis used to identify and exterminate Jews and others.
Our nation’s leaders should openly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of immigration, but these debates must be informed by data — not racist imagery and conjecture. Unfortunately, Trump has helped cultivate a political culture in which the vilest instincts of humanity can outweigh actual evidence. The nation suffers as a result.
Darren Lenard Hutchinson is the John Lewis Chair in Civil Rights and Social Justice and professor of constitutional law at Emory University School of Law.
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