The stereotype of immigrants eating dogs and cats is storied — and vitriolic as ever

This story first appeared in NPR's live blog of the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. See how the night unfolded.

It was understood that immigration would be front and center during Tuesday night’s presidential debate. More surprising was that the conversation veered into bizarre falsehoods about migrants eating pet dogs and cats in Ohio.

While certainly strange, these accusations are hardly unprecedented. In fact, there’s a long history of accusing immigrants of eating cats and dogs.

For context, in the last few days, vice presidential candidate JD Vance has echoed a rumor about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio eating people’s pets. Springfield, a city of around 60,000, has received 15,000 to 20,000 migrants in the last four years, many from Haiti.

Mayor Rob Rue recently told NPR the influx has led to the city struggling with basic infrastructure. Schools and hospitals are spread thin, and an existing housing crisis has exacerbated. It’s led to tension, as well as unfounded rumors about gang activity, voodoo practices and eating of cats, dogs and park ducks.

The Springfield police has denied the claims.

And yet, tales of migrants eating pets spread throughout social media like wildfire. So did the memes and AI images of former President Donald Trump saving kittens and dogs in the hours leading up to the debate.

It even made it to the debate itself.

"They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats," Trump said during an answer to a question about immigration. "They're eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame."

Vice President Harris looked away and laughed at the comments while moderator David Muir stepped in, saying there have been no credible reports of pets being harmed by Springfield’s immigrant community.

But by the time the debate was over, THEY’RE EATING THE DOGS was trending on the platform X.

Fear and disgust over immigrant foods has a long history in America. Italians were once upon a time labeled as “garlic eaters”. Writer Gustavo Arellano has written about how the staple diet of beans led to a slur against Mexicans. The stereotype of the immigrant who eats cats and dogs is also storied, often lobbed against Asian Americans.

“The dog-eating stereotype has historically been utilized to belittle Asians and Asian immigrants,” writes Jean Rachel Bahk in the Inlandia literary journal. “I was incessantly pestered about whether the meat in the side dishes I brought for lunch was dog meat” she recalls about her own childhood.

“Despite my persistent attempts to explain that dog-eating was not at all a common practice among Asians not to mention Asian Americans I started to beg my mom to stop packing me Korean dishes.”

In recent speeches Trump has also likened immigrants to Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal in the film Silence of the Lambs. Ultimately, with both accusations there’s a point being made: these people are here to consume us, and what we love.

"I've seen them,” Springfield Republican committeewoman Glenda Bailey recently told NPR of Haitian migrants, echoing concepts of The Great Replacement theory. “What they've done is they've replaced the population in Springfield, Ohio."

Following the debate, social media was rife with comments from people in disbelief that part of a presidential debate focused on pets being eaten by people. But it should not come as a shock: In the last few years the rhetoric on immigration from the Republican Party has been getting more vitriolic, according to a study from Stanford University.

The study used AI to chart the tone of more than 200,000 speeches since the 1880s, and found the hostile rhetoric in the way Republicans discuss immigration today is very reminiscent of that used against Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s, when they were targeted by the nation's first country-based restrictions on immigration.

And at Tuesday night's debate, they once again were broadcast to millions of Americans by the party's candidate for president.