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"Trump and Vance are trying to start a race riot," said one New York Times columnist.
For the second consecutive day on Friday, schools in Springfield, Ohio were forced to close after receiving bomb threats as the city remained at the center of a political firestorm after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, his running mate Sen. JD Vance, and other prominent Republicans have spread unproven rumors and racist smears about Haitian migrants in the city.
A spokesperson for the school district said Perrin Woods Elementary School, Snowhill Elementary School, and Cliff Park High School were among the public buildings that were forced to evacuate, and Roosevelt Middle School administrators closed the school for the day based on information received from the Springfield Police Department.
Other city business also ground to a halt as the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Ohio License Bureau Southside received emailed threats.
Police said they were working to determine the source of the threats. On Thursday, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said the nature of the bomb threat that came in via email made clear it was a "hateful response to immigration in our town."
But hours after Rue said that it was "frustrating when national politicians, on the national stage, mischaracterize what is actually going on and misrepresent our community," Vance persisted in spreading bigoted misinformation on the social media platform X.
The junior senator from Ohio repeated a claim that "there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases" in Springfield due to an influx of Haitian migrants, about 12,000-15,000 of whom have moved to the city in recent years and have received a warm welcome from many employers.
Authorities have said reports of a rise in diseases in Springfield are false, as are claims—also spread widely by politicians including Vance and Trump, that Haitian immigrants have been stealing and eating people's pets in the city.
Condemning Vance's latest diatribe, John DiLillo said that if Springfield suffers actual violence following the threats, "it will be his fault."
Trump also continued attacking the Haitian community on Friday, saying in a speech that immigrants have "descended upon" the town and "destroyed the way of life."
Republican lawmakers and activists have frequently said they support "legal immigration" and aim to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants into the U.S.—a topic Trump quickly pivoted to on Friday when asked by a reporter why his campaign continues to focus on Springfield. The majority of Haitian people in Springfield are authorized to be in the U.S., with some benefiting from the Temporary Protected Status program.
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie warned against reducing the Trump campaign's outlandish lies about Haitian people in Springfield—ones that have also been spread by neo-Nazis—to an election season meme.
"What they're doing is called a blood libel," said Bouie. "It is smearing a group of people with the accusation that they are killing, in the case of Jews in medieval Europe, killing children, in the case of Haitian immigrants in 2024 United States, killing pets and eating them... And the purpose and the point of a blood libel is to incite violence... to drive people to commit violence against others out of fear, anger, and hatred."
"Trump and Vance are trying to start a race riot," he added.
President Joe Biden addressed the issue on Friday in a speech, saying the Trump's campaign attacks on Haitian immigrants are "simply wrong."
"It has no place in America," said the president. "He has to stop what he's doing."