Donald Trump repeats baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio

The claim appears to have come from a number of different sources which have been turned into a cohesive – though baseless – story by pro-Trump social media accounts.

At a 27 August meeting of Springfield’s city commission, a local resident who describes himself as a social media influencer, external launched into a speech against Haitian immigrants.

He gave a long list of grievances, including that they were slaughtering park ducks for food, and accused city officials of being paid to bring in immigrants, but provided no evidence for these claims.

A claim about a cat being killed by Haitian immigrants was made on a Facebook post focusing on crime in Springfield, external, and attributed by the poster to the friend of a neighbour’s daughter.

During the presidential debate on Tuesday, Trump also claimed to have seen “people on television [saying] ‘My dog was taken and used for food’”.

BBC Verify has looked at archive video of every major US broadcaster, including Fox, CNN and CBS. We also used keywords to search for relevant video on social media, and have not identified any televised interview of this nature.

Separately, a news report, external – as well as police bodycam footage – from late August about a woman arrested for killing and eating a cat has also been circulating online.

Many right-wing commentators have referred to the woman as Haitian and pointed to the report as evidence for the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants have been engaged in similar activity.

However, the incident took place in Canton, Ohio, about 170 miles (273km) away from Springfield.

Canton Police told the BBC that the suspect was born in 1997 and that she was a US citizen. The department also told us “we have not dealt with any complaints of Haitian immigrants at all.”

BBC Verify spoke to the Springfield City Commission about the claims.

Officials told us: “There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”