REBECCA NOBLE / AFP
A man holds an AI-generated image of Donald Trump carrying cats away from Haitian immigrants, in Tucson, Arizona, on September 12, 2024.
UNITED STATES – The cascading consequences of false information. Officials in the American city of Springfield announced that they had ordered the evacuation of several schools on Friday, September 13, in the context of false accusations by Donald Trump against Haitian migrants living in the town.
This small town in Ohio, a state in the northeast of the country, has been at the heart of a heated controversy since Monday, launched by the radical right and fanned by Donald Trump, who falsely claims that Haitian migrants attack dogs and cats to eat them.
On Friday, the Republican stepped up his mendacious diatribes, promising “mass expulsions” in Springfield, pretending to ignore that many of these migrants have residence permits.
Angry Joe Biden
Although the local police have categorically denied this theory, as have many fact-checking media outlets, the Republican candidate has repeated it several times since Tuesday, when he had already peddled it during his televised debate against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
“What he’s doing has to stop, it has to stop.”Joe Biden said Friday from the White House. “There is no room in America” for such allegations, he added.
Two primary schools were evacuated and a middle school was closed, officials said in a statement to several media outlets. The day before, the town hall had been evacuated after a bomb threat.
Threats against a Haitian home
Federal police are also investigating threats made Thursday night against a Haitian home in the city, the center’s director, Viles Dorsainvil, told AFP, citing insults and calls for “to clear” of the community.
Despite the highly dubious nature of the rumor, Donald Trump and his close associates have so far shown no willingness to back down from their claims.
At a rally Thursday in Arizona, a state bordering Mexico, the 78-year-old billionaire continued to refer to the false and racist claim. “It was a beautiful community, it’s horrible what happened”he told the crowd, also mentioning, without proof, the case of migrants attacking “geese”or “raping young American girls”.
Some of his supporters were seen at the campaign rally carrying signs showing Donald Trump protecting two kittens in his arms, images generated by artificial intelligence.
His running mate JD Vance, senator from Ohio, assured on X on Friday that the city of Springfield had experienced a “significant increase in communicable diseases (…) and crime”.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.fr
