Republicans pushing 'dangerous' Haitian conspiracy theory, White House says

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House said Republicans are spreading dangerous false claims about Haitian immigrants, after U.S. vice presidential candidate JD Vance and other top Republicans posted social messages accusing Haitians of eating cats and other pets.

"What's deeply concerning to us is you've got now elected officials in the Republican Party pushing, you know, yet another conspiracy theory that's just seeking to divide people based on lies and, let's be honest, based on an element of racism," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday.

"This kind of language, this kind of disinformation, is dangerous because there will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is, and they might act on that kind of information and act on it in a way where somebody could get hurt. So it needs to stop."

Vance, a senator and the running mate of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on Monday said on X: "Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country," in a post in which he also said that Haitian immigrants were "causing chaos" in Springfield, a city in his home state of Ohio.

Other Republicans and their backers, including Senator Ted Cruz and billionaire Elon Musk, have posted similar accusations and memes in recent days.

Local police have received no such reports and issued a statement addressing the issue

"In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that 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.

The city also put out a Frequently Asked Questions on the Haitians on its website, which noted that the Haitians are there legally and able to work.

The claim started in a Springfield Facebook group, where someone wrote that a cat had got lost, ABC News reported. The person then without evidence claimed that Haitians took the cat for food.

On Tuesday, Vance acknowledged the claims were not substantiated. "It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false," he said in an X post before going on to blame Haitian migration for affecting local healthcare provision, education and other issues.

But Vance did not back down. In another post on Tuesday he said: "In short, don't let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing."

Trump has made a series of inflammatory and racist statements on the campaign trail in his race against U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. In some cases, he has used violent imagery to lambaste immigrants and opponents.

The United States has seen a marked increase in hate crimes - defined by the FBI as an offense motivated by bias against race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender - in recent years. FBI crime data shows the number of reported bias crimes went from around 8,500 in 2018 to more than 13,300 in 2022, a record high.

More than a million people living in the U.S. were born in Haiti, Census data show, more than double the number at the beginning of the century.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Howard Schneider in Springfield; Editing by Heather Timmons, Rosalba O'Brien, Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)