Immigrants
2024 March
2024-03-28 Michigan State Representative Matt Maddock posted on social media during March Madness, “Happening right now. Three buses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort? @petehoekstra”.
https://x.com/matthewmaddock/status/1773143040724451761
2024 September
2024-09-09 Trump reposted a tweet from JD Vance. The Vance post read, “Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants 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. Where is our border czar?”. Trump added “Border Czar Kamala Harris invited thousands of Haitian Migrants to flood into America and now a small town in Ohio is being torn apart because of what Kamala did”.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/10/jd-vance-false-conspiracy-haitian-immigrants-john-kirby.html
2024-09-09 Ted Cruz posted a meme on social media of two cats hugging each other, captioned “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us”.
https://x.com/tedcruz/status/1833174142591365185
2024-09-10 JD Vance posted on Truth Social “In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false”.
2024-09-11 JD Vance doubled down on his perpetuating the nonsense that migrants were eating pets in Ohio. During a sit-down interview with Kaitlan Collins on CNN, he stated “When you have a lot of people saying ‘My pets are being abducted’ or ‘Geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us’, this is crazy stuff. And again, whether those exact rumors turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be – Kaitlan, this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in. Health care costs are up. Housing costs are up. Communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed in this small Ohio town. This is what Kamala Harris’s border policies have done. And I think it’s interesting, Kaitlan, that, that the media didn’t care about the carnage brought by these policies until we turned it into a meme about cats”. [see Thought Project section in the main menu under ‘Fallacies’]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRPLCso0Sw
2024-09-12 Days after Trump and JD Vance provoked fear about pets being eaten, Springfield experienced several days of bomb threats made to multiple county, school, and hospital facilities. Haitian
2024-09-15 During an interview with Face the Nation, JD Vance responded to Springfield bomb threats by saying he believed those responsible should be prosecuted, but then he circumvented the question by stating”… we don’t believe in a heckler’s veto in this country. You can condemn violence on the one hand, while also saying that there have been terrible problems caused by Kamala Harris’ open border in Springfield. Now, you said that these are false rumors, but I’ve heard about a dozen things…ten of them are verifiable and confirmable…maybe all of these constituents are lying to me, but I would appreciate if all of the media showed up and did some real investigation rather than amplifying the worst people in the world”.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-ohio-haitian-immigrants-false-claims-face-the-nation/
2025 April
2025-04-30 The White House shared a digitally altered image of “M-S-1-3” on Abrego Garcia’s hand. Most Americans quickly realized it was simply text typed over a photo of his hand and not actually tattoos. However, Trump repeatedly insisted the picture was real during an interview. It is unclear if the photo intends to depict the meaning behind each tattoo.
2025 July
2025-07-01 Kristi Noem peddled a claim that an immigrant tried to eat their own arm during a deportation flight. Whether the immigrant did or didn’t try to injure themselves or the exact circumstance has not been known, but some fear these claims are more rhetoric to instill fear about immigrants.
2025 October
2025-10-05 In an X post Mike Johnson wrote, “as a condition for ending the Democrat shutdown, Democrats want hospitals (to be) paid MORE to treat illegal aliens than American citizens”.
https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1974851480872980963
2025 December
2025-12-26 A right-wing shock vlogger Nick Shirley demanded entry into daycare centers and accused Somali residents of $9B in childcare fraud. The viral video prompted DHS to conduct a massive investigation in Minnesota. Shortly after the investigation started, Trump politicized the issue by freezing childcare funds to Minnesota. Later, Trump decided to extend the funding freeze to five (5) Democrat-led states. Several media outlets including Fox News featured investigative reporting disproving the vlogger’s claims and showed security camera footage of parents showing up to drop their children off at the center. It was shared that there had been fraudulent activity in the past, but most of it had been addressed, people had been placed in prison, many of the offenders where white (not Somali), and when Tim Walz requested more legislation so he could do more work to come after these criminals, he was denied. And now daycare centers across the State of Minnesota are receiving numerous harassing phone calls, threats, and other content creators banging on their doors.
It is also important to note – for context – that the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 has a mandate in their text to dismantle and defund childcare, so demonizing childcare in this country isactually partof the Trump and Heritage Foundation agenda. Pages 482 and 486 outlines a plan to completely dismantle availability to childcare so women will be forced out of the workplace. That includes single mothers that they love to demonize.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-fraud-nick-shirley-video-day-care-investigation/
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/30/g-s1-104049/trump-minnesota-child-care-funding-freeze-fraud-schemes
2025-12-27 JD Vance tweeted about Nick Shirley “This dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 @pulitzercenter prizes.