President Joe Biden on Friday praised his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, and condemned racist lies targeting Haitians and other immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
“So many Americans like Karine, as it was pointed out, a proud Haitian-American — a community that's under attack in our country right now,” the president said during remarks at White House brunch that celebrated Black excellence. “Simply wrong. There's no place in America. This has to stop, what he's doing.”
Biden appeared to be referencing Donald Trump, who has spread racist, right-wing conspiracy theories about the Haitian immigrant population in the Ohio town, including during the presidential debate with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Tuesday. Trump has falsely claimed Haitian immigrants are “destroying [the residents'] way of life" and are abducting and eating pets and other wildlife. In recent days, Springfield officials and schools have faced bomb threats, which caused evacuations of multiple buildings.
Meanwhile, the woman who seemingly began the viral rumor about Haitian migrants eating pets, acknowledged this week that she “doesn’t have any proof.” Erika Lee, a resident of Springfield, Ohio, wrote a Facebook post that claimed “her neighbor informed her” that she had witnessed Haitian migrants hanging and skinning a friend’s cat. The post, premised on a comment relayed to Lee from another Springfield resident named Kimberly Newton, was screenshotted and spread through conservative media.
Now, Newton is acknowledging that she herself had no basis for the claim. “I’m not sure I’m the most credible source because I don’t actually know the person who lost the cat,” Newton told NewsGuard, an investigative reporting outlet that is dedicated to combating misinformation. She went on to explain that the owner of the cat supposedly abducted was “an acquaintance of a friend” and that she had no direct evidence.
Local and state officials, including the mayor of Springfield and the governor of Ohio, who is a Republican, have repeatedly maintained the story has no basis.
