‘This has to stop’: Biden condemns attacks on Haitian US immigrants

Joe Biden on Friday said the hostile attacks on Haitian immigrants in the US "[have] to stop" after Donald Trump repeated a false and derogatory claim about a Haitian community in Ohio.

"It is simply wrong that the proud Haitian community is under attack right now in this country," Biden said. "There's no place in America. This has to stop - what he's doing. It has to stop," the US president said at a White House event marking Black excellence.

The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, earlier on Friday said that the bomb threat made on Thursday that forced the evacuation of the city hall, two schools and other buildings was explicitly anti-immigrant and hostile to the city's Haitian community, following Donald Trump's stoking of a rightwing conspiracy theory that some residents' pets are being eaten.

Rob Rue, the mayor, accused national Republicans who are amplifying wild rumors from a far-right provocateur that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are hunting and eating other people's pets of "hurting our city".

The threat "used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community", Rue told the Washington Post, and added that Springfield "is a community that needs help".

Springfield has been the subject of national attention in recent days after the false social media rumor about the Haitian community.

That same day, JD Vance mentioned the rumor on X (formerly Twitter), which has also been flooded with AI-generated images of Trump surrounded by dogs, cats and ducks.

Rue on Tuesday condemned the rumors as totally false, with "zero" verified reports of such disparaging claims. ABC's debate moderator David Muir made the same factcheck live on Tuesday night after Trump's remarks.

Rue told the Springfield News-Sun: "Rumors like this are taking away from the real issues such as issues involving our housing or school resources and our overwhelmed healthcare system."

Meanwhile, during a Springfield city commission forum, Nathan Clark, the father of an 11-year-old boy who was killed last year when a minivan driven by an immigrant from Haiti collided with his school bus, told Trump and Vance to stop using his son's name for "political gain".

Reuters contributed reporting

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