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From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.”

At this week’s presidential debate —

— Donald Trump went into an unprompted digression about immigrants eating people’s pets.

While the claims were debunked, the topic was left unexplained. Today, my colleague Miriam Jordan on the story behind those shocking and false claims and the town and the tragedy that gave rise to them.

It’s Friday, September 13.

So, Miriam, one of the standout moments in the debate on Tuesday was this kind of bizarre exchange where Donald Trump made a reference to a conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants. He said that they had been eating people’s pets in the town of Springfield, Ohio. And a lot of people, I assume, had no idea what he was talking about. But you knew exactly what he was referring to. Tell us about that.

Well, Yes, Donald Trump was talking about the latest and perhaps strangest turn in the story that I’ve been covering in Springfield, Ohio, a mid-sized town in the southern part of the state. It has to do with the Haitian immigrant community in that town and the controversy surrounding their arrival in large numbers. And I should say right away, of course, there’s absolutely no evidence that any immigrants were actually stealing and eating pets. This has no basis in reality. Local authorities have denied it. But it exploded on social media, and this town landed in the middle of this election campaign.

OK, let’s start at the beginning. What should we know about Springfield, Ohio?

In its heyday, it was extremely prosperous industrial barons who manufactured farming equipment, built incredibly majestic Victorian homes that still line some of the avenues there. And generally, it was considered a mini-Chicago.

Wow.

The city had a population at its peak of about 80,000 in the ‘60s, early ‘70s. But then, like many of these towns in the Midwest, it began to lose population, in large part because so many manufacturing jobs went overseas. Companies that operated in town shuttered, and people had to look for opportunity elsewhere.

So what begins to happen is that this town, as it falls on hard times, you begin to see houses boarded up, buildings abandoned, downtown looking in sad shape. And that decline persisted for several decades, until a few years ago, when the city leadership and the Chamber of Commerce decided to do something about it. They came up with a plan to revitalize the city.

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They started pitching this city as an attractive place to do business. The location of the city, smack dab between Dayton and Columbus, is a big plus. It’s easily accessible to two interstates. It has several colleges and institutions for training. And it’s an affordable place to live and to operate as a business. And this plan actually succeeds.

A major turning point was in 2017 when a very large Japanese auto parts maker acquired land in a decaying part of the city and set up shop, creating hundreds of jobs. And it was probably one of the biggest employers that ended up setting up shop there, but it wasn’t the only one. Companies that make boxes for Happy Meals sold at McDonald’s.

Wow.

Companies that distribute clothing across the country. But there was a problem. There weren’t enough workers.

So what happened?

Well, immigrants start to arrive, in particular Haitians. Like other immigrant groups, they hear about opportunities by word of mouth. They tell each other. In this case, they were drawn by the availability of well-paying jobs. And they also heard that the cost of living was pretty low in Springfield.

So soon, more and more Haitians arrived. And they were very attractive to employers because they had authorization to legally work in the United States. And what they have is something called temporary protected status.

What’s that?

It’s a designation given to people from countries in turmoil, like Haiti. And it means that nationals from these places in upheaval who have already arrived in the United States can stay in the United States legally. So the status enables the immigrants to get employment authorization, which is a huge benefit to businesses in Springfield that need workers.

So how many Haitian immigrants end up coming?

So estimates vary. But what I’ve heard from city officials is that between 12,000 and 20,000 Haitian migrants moved to Springfield in the last three to four years. So a city that had a population just under 60,000, now possibly has 80,000.

Wow. So what happens in the town once they start to settle there and live their lives? How does the town change?

By most accounts, Springfield benefits from this influx of Haitians. They have come to work. I heard from employers like Jamie McGregor, who runs an auto parts maker, that Haitians are coming to work on time. They’re reliable. They’re drama-free. And they’ve now come to represent 10 percent of his workforce.

The immigrants are working in a variety of capacities. Some of them are opening businesses and restaurants. They’re sending their kids to schools, schools that actually had been losing students because the city had been shrinking. And they’re leasing homes and apartments.

I met a landlord, in fact, who has been buying up some of these homes that had been delinquent on property taxes and went to auction and fixing them up to rent them to Haitians. And I took a spin around town with him. And I was able to see that there are many blocks where newly refurbished homes are sprucing up the neighborhood. They have manicured gardens, and they look a lot more cheerful than blocks where homes are still boarded up.

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So you’re seeing, literally, a town come back to life very quickly, almost overnight.

That’s true. But the sudden influx of all these people also puts a huge strain on the town’s resources. For example, the schools now have 1,500 out of 7,500 students who are English language learners.

Wow.

That’s meant that the school district very quickly has had to hire English as a second language instructors, interpreters and others to assist the new students and the families.

At the main federally-subsidized health clinic in the city, the head of the clinic actually told me that they had seen Haitians lining up at 5:00 AM, about three hours before the clinic actually opens, to secure appointments. And meanwhile, long-time residents could not get in. And appointments that were scheduled for 15-minute slots can take up to 45 minutes because there’s now this massive need for translation for folks who are not fluent in English.

And then there’s the toll on housing in Springfield. And that problem has been exacerbated by the arrival of so many Haitians. Rents have gone up. And sometimes four or five Haitian men rent one house. They can afford to pay more than one American family with one or two breadwinners, right?

Interesting.

So there has been some displacement of Americans who are low-income and who have had trouble making their rent. So some resentment starts to build under the surface. But the town is just going about its business and people are living their lives until something tragic happens that makes these feelings boil over.

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So on the first day of school last year, 52 students were on a bus that was traveling down Route 41 when a minivan veered into oncoming traffic, hit the bus and caused it to tip over —

— ejecting an 11-year-old boy, and killing him.

More than 20 students were hospitalized. The driver of the minivan was a 36-year-old Haitian immigrant.

Authorities didn’t find that he had consumed alcohol or drugs. And in May of this year, he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

The accident shook the community to its core, but also suddenly all the resentment that people had been feeling burst into the open.

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We’ll be right back.

So, Miriam, what happens in Springfield after this incident, as the community tries to process all of this?

So this accident really brought into the open these simmering tensions some residents had been feeling about the Haitian community.

And people began packing these public meetings to express their frustrations.

And what were people saying in them, Miriam?

They run the gamut.

People complained about how Haitians drive —

— about how Haitians are pushing up housing costs.

They wondered out loud whether Haitians were dangerous.

Others used racist tropes.

Several people suggested that the city was being invaded.

And the officials struggled to respond to them.

All they could say was, don’t blame us. We didn’t bring the Haitians here. They’ve come here. We can’t do anything.

But that didn’t seem to calm people down.

So it sounds like the bus accident really opened up the floodgates, gave people permission to start to complain about things openly that they might have only been saying privately before.

Exactly. So at this point, it’s a little unclear what happened next. But by all accounts, it seems that the pressure that was building reached a point that local elected officials felt they needed to do something to address residents’ concerns. And so one of the things that they do is that they focus on all these complaints surrounding the housing situation.

In early July, they send a letter to the Senate Banking Committee, and they explain that the city of Springfield is facing a significant housing crisis that has been exacerbated by the large influx of immigrants. And the letter is copied to Ohio Senator JD Vance, and he runs with it.

He attends a conservative conference in Washington, DC, and he invokes the town.

He says that middle class people who have lived there for generations can’t afford a place to live, that these, quote, “illegal immigrants” are straining the city.

And the next thing you know —

— the Springfield city manager and mayor are on “Fox and Friends.”

The mayor and the city manager say that the city is under tremendous strain because of this surge in the Haitian population.

And they blame the Biden administration for letting people into the country without keeping track of them or providing additional assistance to the localities that receive them.

So what happens after this “Fox and Friends” appearance?

This whole situation takes a very strange turn a few weeks later.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

It seems that it all begins with a guy at a city commission meeting who describes himself as an influencer.

He claims that Haitians are grabbing ducks from the park, decapitating them and eating them.

Whoa.

At the same time, in a neighborhood Facebook group, someone posts that a neighbor’s daughter’s friend had seen a dead cat hanging from a tree at a Haitian home.

A neighbor’s daughter’s friend. That’s pretty far removed.

Right. But then there’s video footage that surfaces of someone allegedly eating a cat. And actually, that person was not Haitian. And this did not happen in Springfield. But it still added fuel to the fire. And this whole situation goes viral.

Trump’s son, Don Jr., tweets that Haitians are eating pets in Springfield. Elon Musk shared a post of people eating pets, saying, “Vote for Kamala if you want this to happen to your neighborhood.” And there’s this Billboard put up by the Arizona GOP that says, “Eat less kittens. Vote Republican.” And then, of course, Trump talks about it from the debate stage on Tuesday night.

So this is pretty wild. And these claims, they really evoke racist stereotypes of past eras. It’s reminding me of the Willie Horton ad, the infamous television ad from the 1988 presidential campaign that used racist fears and stereotypes about crime against Michael Dukakis, the Democrat at the time. Except this is of the meme era.

Right. In a way, this is a classic Trump campaign move. These memes are offensive and they turn off some voters. But at the same time, everyone’s paying attention, sharing them and talking about them. So they’re spreading like wildfire, entering the world of culture, social media, breaking through the noise. And so many more people are noticing something that, at its root, is an issue that’s bad for Democrats — immigration.

So if you think about it this way, it’s actually worth it for the Republicans to share this kind of stuff, even if it’s gross and untrue, because it’s politically beneficial. In fact, Vance himself tweeted about this just on Tuesday. He said that, yes, the memes could be false, but he also seemed to suggest that there was a utility to them. He said, quote, “Don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow Patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing.”

So, Miriam, given all of that internet vitriol and all of these memes raining down on Springfield, it makes me wonder, what do people in Springfield think? Have you talked to them? What are they saying?

Well, in the Haitian community, they’re certainly feeling afraid. And what I heard is that people were calling the Haitian community center, asking about whether their children will be safe and whether it might be time to leave Springfield.

And on Wednesday, the day after the debate, the city manager put out a video expressing dismay that these rumors and political rhetoric have become a distraction from the real problems that his city is facing.

So he’s really trying to bring everybody back to reality.

Yes. But what will stay with me most is that just before the debate was underway on Tuesday night —

— the father of Aiden Clark, the 11-year-old boy killed in that bus crash, spoke at another city commission meeting.

And in an impassioned speech, expressed his utter disgust, really, with politicians who he described as morally bankrupt for utilizing his child as a tool to score political points.

And he said that one of the worst feelings in the world that he’d had is his inability to not just protect his child, but protect his memory now that he’s gone.

So here is someone who has every right to be angry and turn away from this circus. But instead, he’s actually walking up to a podium and speaking out, and pleading for a more nuanced view of all of this, for people to see the situation for what it is and not reduce it to a political talking point.

That’s right. And in some ways, Springfield could have been an opportunity to discuss the challenges of receiving large numbers of immigrants. Instead, it got flattened by a presidential campaign trying to score points at all costs. And at the end of the day, that really makes it harder to actually solve the problems.

[SOLEMN MUSIC]

Miriam, thank you.

Thank you, Sabrina.

[SOLEMN MUSIC]

On Thursday morning, Springfield City Hall was evacuated after a bomb threat was sent to city agencies, schools, and media outlets. Authorities investigated the locations, including with explosive detecting dogs, and determined that they were safe. But City Hall remained closed.

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We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you should know today. “The Times” reports that President Biden appears on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to launch long-range Western weapons deep inside Russian territory, as long as it doesn’t use arms provided by the United States. The US had held off on allowing the use for fear of provoking President Putin from using nuclear weapons. On Thursday, Putin issued an unusually specific warning, saying that allowing Ukraine to use the weapons will mean, quote, “that NATO countries are at war with Russia.”

[THEME MUSIC]

And on Thursday, the New York City police commissioner resigned at the request of City Hall after federal agents seized his phone last week as part of a criminal investigation. In a memo to the police department, Edward A. Caban wrote that he resigned because the news reports about that investigation had, quote, “created a distraction for the Department.”

The announcement came just a year after he was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams and underscores the chaos swirling around the mayor’s administration, which has been roiled by four federal investigations in recent months, resulting in searches and seizures targeting high-ranking officials.

[THEME MUSIC]

Remember to catch a new episode of “The Interview” right here tomorrow. This week, Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Demi Moore about her new movie, “The Substance.” In it, Moore plays an actress struggling with her aging body.

The question is, would you trade your wisdom for a tight ass? [LAUGHS]

I would like to not have to choose.

Today’s episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Asthaa Chaturvedi, and Rob Szypko. It was edited by Michael Benoist and Mark George, with research help from Susan Lee, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

[THEME MUSIC]

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you on Monday.