Gabriel Caswell, 22, caretaker at an animal shelter in Weatherford, Texas, received a prison sentence of 10 years recently for torturing resident cats and kittens, five of whom died from their injuries. He admitted guilt at the outset of his trial.
The depravity of his conduct moved the jury to invoke the maximum penalty for animal cruelty. The prosecutor characterized Caswell as a monster. Jurors rejected his lawyer’s request for probation.
A harsh sentence, yes. Yet the punishment is understandable. Animal abuse is often a predictor of violence against humans. Indeed, Caswell’s estranged wife testified to his slapping their year-old son so hard it left his palm imprint on the baby’s head.
There is no understanding or penalty, however, for scaremongers who continue to lie on social media that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are kidnapping and eating their neighbors’ pet cats and dogs.
That ugly falsehood promptly turned into anti-immigrant campaign fodder for former President Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. Both refused to accept statements by state and local officials debunking the lie. An AI-generated meme showing Trump cuddling two kittens and fleeing two Haitians is popular on the internet.
Not even Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, can convince Trump and Vance of the baseless pet-eating claims. “The mayor says there’s no evidence, chief of police says there’s no evidence, city manager says there’s no evidence,” DeWine declared. “There’s no evidence of this at all.”
But the lie persists, bringing threats of violence against the 12,000 to 15,000 Haitians in Ohio’s Clark County, most of them in Springfield, a city of 60,000 that’s suddenly the focus of immigration dread in America. Bomb scares disrupt city hall and schools.
The thing is they are legal migrants. A federal program vetted the Haitians for asylum from their island country’s humanitarian crisis caused by widespread gang violence and daily murders. They settled in Springfield because some had relatives there, and manufacturing and warehouse distributors sought workers for a resurgent labor market.
“These Haitians came in to work for these companies,” said Governor DeWine. “What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers. They’re very happy to have them and, frankly, that’s helped the economy.”
That’s also exactly the reasons many of today’s Americans are descendants of immigrants who came to this country in the 19th and 20th centuries to escape war, famine and economic hardship for work opportunities and a new life. Initially called interlopers from other countries and cultures, they went on to help build the United States into an economic superpower.
There’s no doubt our immigration system is broken and that unlawful entry on the southern border is a major issue. Badly needed is immigration reform by Congress – and not mass deportation by presidential order.
Springfield’s Haitians are an example of why. Deporting them, as Trump suggests, will hurt the city’s economy and make the hard-working migrants victims of a lie.
Vance has been the principal Springfield antagonist. He gave first political voice to the baseless pet-eating rumor, which he indicated came to his attention from local residents.
Asked by “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker last Sunday why he continues to refer to the lie, he responded: “I trust my constituents more than I do the American media that has shown no interest in what’s happened in Springfield until we started sharing cat memes on the internet.”
I read his statement as conceding he did not check out the false story, but simply used it to bash the Democrats’ immigration policies. Trump did precisely that at the presidential election debate with Vice President Harris.
The Wall Street Journal took a deeper look at how one rumor from Springfield started. A reporter checked out the police report Vance’s campaign said included a missing kitten, Miss Sassy, whose owner suspected her Haitian neighbors had kidnapped.
The reporter went to the neighbor’s home to verify the police item, and learned from Miss Sassy’s owner that the kitty had been found hiding in the basement. The neighbor said she had apologized to the Haitian neighbors.
Still, the pet-eating Haitians story is a lie without end. Nobody on social media or in the political realm fears punishment for propagating it.