A Trump supporter in Springfield, Ohio, who filed a police report accusing Haitian migrants of stealing her cat, recently discovered her pet hiding in her own basement.
Anna Kilgore gained national attention after filing a police report in which she accused her Haitian neighbors of being responsible for her cat’s disappearance in late August, claiming they had eaten the cat.
However, it was later discovered that her cat, Miss Sassy, had been hiding in Kilgore’s basement the entire time. After realizing her mistake, Kilgore used a translation app to apologize to her neighbors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A man walks through Downtown Springfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. A Trump supporter in Springfield, Ohio, who filed a police report accusing Haitian migrants of stealing her cat, recently discovered her pet hiding in her own basement.
AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski
“It was a mistake,” she told reporters, admitting that the incident had gotten out of hand. The apology, however, did little to alleviate the fear and damage already inflicted on Springfield’s Haitian community, with some considering leaving.
Kilgore’s report became the key “proof” behind claims that Haitians were eating pets in Springfield, a rumor fueled by former President Donald Trump and his vice-presidential pick, Ohio Senator JD Vance, who helped spread the story.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said during the September 10 presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating people’s pets. This is what’s happening in our country.”
The claims have been repeatedly debunked by local police, city officials, and Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, yet they continue to circulate. City officials acknowledge growing pains from the influx of some 15,000 Haitian immigrants but say there’s no evidence to support the claim they are consuming anyone’s pets.
Haitians in Springfield and elsewhere came to the U.S. to flee violence in their home country. Many Haitians are here under a federal program called Temporary Protected Status, which allows them to temporarily live and work in the U.S. because conditions are considered too dangerous for them to return to Haiti.
The programs allow migrants from Haiti, as well as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, to enter the U.S. legally if they have a sponsor and meet strict vetting criteria. Those who are eligible can wait within the U.S. while their longer-term immigration status is decided.
However, Vance has insisted that longtime residents felt unsafe and that 20,000 were still in the city “illegally.” He and other GOP politicians have seized on these rumors to bolster the Trump campaign’s narrative that the Biden administration’s border policies are failing.
“If Kamala Harris waves a wand, illegally, and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them illegal aliens,” Vance said. “An illegal action by Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. That is not how this works.”
Vance had earlier attacked Vice President Harris for allowing “25 million illegal aliens” into the country, a number that experts told Newsweek was unfounded.
