A French-speaking woman who works with the Haitian community in Springfield, USA, believes that the Republican faction’s claims about migrants eating pets are ridiculous and dangerous.
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“I’ve never seen this or heard of this in Springfield or anywhere in Ohio,” said Marie-Élisabeth Garcia, a French speaker who lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Donald Trump used this argument during the debate with his presidential opponent on Tuesday, and his running mate, JD Vance, supported it on Wednesday, despite the lack of evidence and the denials.
“It borders on the ridiculous, I had already read it yesterday (Tuesday) in the local press, since it was JD Vance who started talking about it. It’s ridiculous, it can make you smile, but in the end I find it dangerous because it puts a little bit of a target on the backs of immigrants, whether they are Haitian or come from other countries,” continued the woman who works as an interpreter.
According to Mme Garcia, if the situation is causing a reaction on social networks, the community on the ground has other things to think about.
“People talk about it a lot on social media (…) Afterwards, people don’t necessarily talk about it, because it’s not the first thing that comes to mind, they have other things to deal with, especially when you’re a refugee, an immigrant in the United States and you’re trying to get by, it goes a little over their heads,” she continued.
This situation could also lead to reprehensible behavior towards the Haitian community of Springfield, according to Mr.me Garcia.
“When you stir up fear and hatred of others, that’s the fear that you can have, and there the mayor of Springfield had to make a statement of denial, and it takes on proportions beyond the story of domestic animals that would be cooked by Haitians,” she detailed.
Despite everything, the interpreter struggles to understand the extent to which these presumptions have reached the presidential debate table.
“I have a hard time understanding how we could have come to this point and declared that an entire population is starting to hunt their neighbours’ domestic animals to eat them,” she confided in an interview with LCN.
