Trump stokes fears about Haitian migrants in Ohio

Small town dealing with bomb threats after spread of baseless allegations

- MEG KINNARD

“We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio,” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Friday during a news conference in California.

Donald Trump and his running mate on Friday continued to disparage Haitian migrants in an Ohio community, further fuelling false claims the Republicans have promoted even as the city saw bomb threats and school evacuations and local officials called for a cooling of the anti-immigrant rhetoric.

“We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio,” Trump said Friday during a news conference in California, adding that he could possibly hold a campaign event or town hall in the city and claiming the migrants are “destroying the way of life.”

Ohio authorities have said there are no credible or detailed reports to support the debunked allegations circulated this week by both Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, that Haitian immigrants are eating domestic pets and birds in the city’s public parks. Trump mentioned the claims during a debate Tuesday with his Democratic rival, U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, prompting her to laugh and call the GOP presidential nominee “extreme.”

After city agencies were targeted in a bomb threat, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue on Thursday called on politicians to tamp down the rhetoric.