Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and his running mate, former President Donald Trump, have been spewing racist conspiracy theories about Haitians in a small Ohio town. The conspiracies, which originated in a Facebook post, have been proven false, but the Republican ticket and neo-Nazi groups have continued to spread this disinformation, seeking to generate anti-immigrant fear and hatred among white voters.
In the process, they’ve endangered the lives of local Haitian migrants, who have become the targets of racist attacks. Bomb threats have closed government buildings, shuttered schools, suspended community events, led to the evacuation of super markets, and left a community in absolute terror.
“Saying racist things like this and stereotypical things like this actually puts people in danger,” Marlene Daut, a Haitian- American author and professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University, tells The Progressive. “It might just seem like a funny and harmless meme and people are spreading it on the Internet, but this has the power to actually cause harm as we see with these bomb threats and this can harm people.”
These disproven racist conspiracies have generated condemnation from the Haitian-American community, which has struggled for decades with racism and targeted misinformation.
“We call it out for what it is: racist,” Paul Namphy, the chief political director and organizer with the Miami-based advocacy group the Family Action Network Movement, or FANM (which also means woman in Haitian Creole), tells The Progressive. “This aims to pit sisters and brothers against each other and to drive a wedge between communities.”
Following the outcry against his incendiary comments, the Senator from Ohio took to X to double down on arguments that the healthcare system has been overwhelmed by the arrival of Haitian immigrants. Vance made the false argument that cases of “Tuberculosis and HIV” have been on the rise in Springfield.
Vance’s statements about Haitians marks yet another smear against immigrant communities, which have become all too common with both candidates on the Republican ticket, each of whom has made increasingly bombastic, xenophobic comments.
But as the condemnation of such hateful conspiracies comes from both Democrats and Republicans in Ohio, both Vance and Trump have refused to walk back their attempts to seed terror against Haitian immigrants. Instead, they both have continued to slander Haitian immigrants. Vance’s claims and refusal to back down have led to demands for his resignation as Senator. The Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, has condemned the promotion of the conspiracy and called on both Vance and Trump to cease their “hurtful comments.” Springfield Mayor Bob Rue has also indicated that a visit to the city from Trump would do more harm than good.
Contrary to the narratives spewed by the Trump campaign and the right wing, the Haitian refugees who have moved to Springfield are in the country legally through the Biden Administration’s Temporary Protected Status program. Launched in 2023, the parole program seeks to open legal means of immigration for Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and Haitians who have valid passports,permitting them to reside in the United States for at least two years.
Still, Vance said on September 18, “I’m still gonna call [a Haitian immigrant] an illegal alien.”
The levels of misinformation about Haitian immigrants in Springfield spread by Vance and the Trump campaign, along with their allies, is staggering. According to Vance, there are more than 20,000 Haitian immigrants in the city; according to Fox News this number is closer to 30,000; and according to Trump there are 32,000 Haitians in Springfield. But, according to reporting from the local newspaper, the Springfield New-Sun, there are an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian migrants in the city, which had been struggling economically before the arrival of the Haitians immigrants.
This misinformation about a vulnerable population seeking opportunity in the United States highlights a trend against Haitians that goes back to the Haitian revolution in the late eighteenth century.
“It isn’t just one tweet or comment,” Nicole Phillips, a lawyer with the organization Haitian Bridges, tells The Progressive. “Like they were decades ago, Haitians are being scapegoated for political gain. They are being used as this racist trope to divide and spur anger and racism for political gain.”
On January 1, 1804, Haiti declared its independence from France, the abolition of slavery, and established the first Black republic governed by self-liberated enslaved people. But as Haiti established itself, it became a threat for the enslaving colonies and recently established independent federal republic, the United States.
For more than 220 years, racist conspiracies have sought to smear the Haitian Revolution. These attacks have included accusations of cannibalism and lurid stories of voodoo curses and possessions that contributed to the formation and twisting of Zombie stories in the United States.
“This has happened before,” Duat says. “This is in a long line of rhetoric about Haitians being diseased or corrupt and dangerous in some way.”
During the late 1980s and early 1990s during the AIDS crisis, Haitians were listed in the United States as part of the “four H’s,” of origins of HIV/AIDS, along with “Homosexuals, Hemophiliacs, and Heroin users.” The official classification, which barred Haitians from donating blood, led to the mobilization of tens of thousands of Haitian Americans and their allies to march across the Brooklyn Bridge protest and their inclusion as a vector of HIV/AIDS.
“These accusations not only caused terrible terrible harm to our communities, but also destroyed our reputation,” Namphy says.
While the narrative was disproven, it wouldn’t ever be removed from the Republican wheelhouse. These types of narratives seek to paint immigrant communities as a threat, as outsiders, and as those who seek to undermine the social order.
“The conservative side explains it, you would think that immigrants come here so they can just destroy the United States, which is nothing further [from the truth],” Daut says.
“These are people who might have some criticisms of the United States, because the United States has done things to their country,” she explains. “But they come here because they want to live here, build here, make families here, and thrive.”