Ohio town evacuates Haitian schools amid threats

SPRINGFIELD, United States (AFP) — Several schools in the small town of Springfield, Ohio were evacuated Friday, the second day of worrying disruptions amid anti-Haitian-immigrant tensions stoked by Donald Trump and his Republican Party.

Springfield’s authorities closed a middle school and evacuated two elementary schools, the local Springfield News-Sun newspaper and other media reported.

The disruptions — which come after similar evacuations Thursday in reaction to an emailed bomb threat — followed an unspecified warning from the Springfield police department, the reports said.

The head of the local Haitian community center, Viles Dorsainvil, told Agence France-Presse that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was also investigating threatening phone calls to the organization.

The Ohio town has been suddenly thrust into the national spotlight after a conspiracy theory — quickly debunked by local authorities — spread on social media that members of the Haitian immigrant community had stolen and eaten the predominately white population’s pets.

Trump told reporters in California on Friday that he would do “large deportations” of Haitians from Springfield.

President Joe Biden said at the White House that Trump “has to stop” inflaming tensions, and “there’s no place in America for this.”

The bizarre story took off last week with a post on social media site X claiming that “ducks and pets are disappearing.”

It was then quickly amplified by Republican politicians, X’s billionaire owner Elon Musk, and Trump himself — including during his nationally televised debate Tuesday with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Trump, the Republican White House candidate, is seizing on the fake story to fuel his campaign message that the United States faces an “invasion” of illegal immigrants, whom he characterizes as violent criminals and escapees from “insane asylums.”