Using dehumanizing language to describe immigrants is nothing new for former president Donald Trump or vice presidential candidate JD Vance. Accusations of immigrants being criminals, rapists, poisoning the blood of the nation have become common currency. But this week, the rhetoric seemed to hit a new low: the allegation that immigrants eat pets.

Vance, who also represents Ohio in the U.S. Senate, spread a debunked claim about Haitian migrants living in the city of Springfield, Ohio on Monday, accusing them of abducting pets and eating them.

The claim, which local police say is baseless, was made by far-right activists, local Republicans and neo-Nazis before being picked up by Vance. A well-known advocate for the Haitian community says she received a wave of racist harassment in the aftermath of Vance’s post.

Vance made the claim as part of a political attack against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. On the social media site X, Vance wrote, “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?” a label Republicans have pinned on Harris, who was tasked by President Biden with working to examine the root causes of migration from Central America

Springfield, a small city of around 60,000 people, has received from 15,000 to 20,000 migrants, many from Haiti, in the past four years, which has created tension as the city works to absorb so many newcomers in a short amount of time.

The city has often been cited by Vance and other Republicans as what they view as a cautionary tale of the economic woes caused by immigration.

Less than 30 minutes after Vance’s post, the Springfield News-Sun reported that local police said that incidents of pets being stolen or eaten were “not something that’s on our radar right now.”

But on X, Republican politicians and far right social media influencers continued to amplify the narrative. “Cat Lives Matter!” wrote Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.) while Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) posted, “Protect America’s pets!”

Apparent AI-generated images of former president Donald Trump with kittens and ducks soon followed on the social media site. The owner of X, Elon Musk, also amplified the story to his nearly 200 million followers.

The Springfield News-Sun reported that Vance might have been referencing an allegation of cat-eating from Canton, Ohio, about 175 miles away.

Before Vance, neo-Nazis helped spread the debunked claims

The now-refuted claim appears to have gotten its start online in early August, when a user on the far-right social platform Gab commented on photos of members of the white supremacist neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe marching through Springfield protesting Haitian migrants and carrying swastika flags. The commenter claimed that “once haitians (sic) swarm into a town animals start to disappear.”

Later in August, a resident at a Springfield City Commission meeting claimed that the migrants were eating ducks in the park. A member of the same neo-Nazi group also attended the meeting and the group later echoed that claim on Gab. Days later, it appeared on X.

Haitian immigrants in Springfield have been the targets of rumors for some time, as NPR reported last month. GOP committee woman Glenda Bailey has become one of the loudest voices against Haitian migration, publicly accusing the community of having diseases, carrying out Voodoo rites, and being involved in gangs. She’s also spoken at length about the Great Replacement theory, the belief that there is a movement to replace white populations in current white-majority countries. “Some of the Haitians are gang members,” she told NPR. “I’ve seen them. They have become the occupiers. What they’ve done is they’ve replaced the population in Springfield, Ohio.”

The Springfield Police Department told NPR last month that such claims were troubling.

“I think it’s sad that some people are using this as an opportunity to spread hate or spread fear,” says Officer Jason Via, Deputy Director of Public Safety and Operations. “We get these reports ‘the Haitians are killing ducks in a lot of our parks’ or ‘the Haitians are eating vegetables right out of the aisle at the grocery store.’ And we haven’t really seen any of that. It’s really frustrating. As a community, it’s not helpful as we try to move forward.”

Racist messages flood a Springfield leader’s inbox

Springfield resident Denise Williams’s phone began blowing up on Monday while she was spending time with her children and grandchildren not long after Vance posted.

As they played and laughed around her, emails kept landing in her inbox at a pace Williams said she had never experienced in her decade of being the president of Springfield’s NAACP chapter. In recent months, Williams has been speaking out against racism directed towards the Haitian community.

Some senders called themselves “Victim of Springfield” and accused her of “a massive crime against humanity” for defending Haitian immigrants and said “you don’t care because it helps to get rid of Whitey.”

Williams, a Black woman, said she doesn’t feel safe. “I’m taking that as a pure threat.”

“I want to talk to JD [Vance],” said Williams, ‘“What are you going to do now about the violence that has been stirred up and talked about in our community?’” She added, “I’m concerned about the threat that the white supremacists are making.”

NPR reached out to several activists in the Haitian community of Springfield Ohio, and has not heard of instances of direct harassment. The Springfield Police Department has not responded to NPR’s latest inquiries.

Williams has travel scheduled for later in the week but said she’s now unsure whether she should even leave her house.

“I know that I’m not fearful. However, I’ve got to be smart. So I got to see what I’m going to do.”

Vance urges supporters to ‘keep the cat memes flowing’

Vance’s post drew condemnation from the White House. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, White House spokesman John Kirby said, “You’ve got now elected officials in the Republican party pushing 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.”

Vance responded to the criticism of the veracity of his claims in another post on X. “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.”

The senator then went on to write about Aiden Clark, an 11-year old boy who died in a traffic accident involving a Haitian driver last year, in Springfield: “Do you know what’s confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here.” (The driver, Hermanio Joseph, testified in court that he was in the U.S. legally and holds Temporary Protected status. NPR spoke to local immigration lawyers who said most Haitians in Springfield also have the same immigration status.) ). Late last year, Clark’s parents disavowed anti-Hatian sentiment associated with their son’s death, telling the Springfield News-Sun “We do not want our son’s name to be associated with the hate that’s being spewed.”

Vance ended his statement on X saying: “In short, don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing.”

NPR’s Jude Joffe-Block contributed reporting to this story.