Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) faced severe criticism Friday for spreading anti-immigrant rhetoric on social media minutes before flocks of children in his state were rushed out of their classrooms over an undisclosed threat.
Vance, running mate to former President Donald Trump, doubled down on his attack on Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio in an X post published about 9:25 a.m. — about 10 minutes before a local Catholic school announced safety threats had forced them to dismiss their students.
"In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime," Vance wrote. "This is what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community. [Vice President] Kamala Harris's immigration policy aims to do this to every town in our country."
Local reports published about 10 a.m. do not say exactly when the Springfield City School District announced students from Perrin Woods and Snowhill elementary schools in Springfield were being evacuated because information received from police.
But a Facebook alert from Catholic School Central warning parents of nearby safety threats when live at 9:33 a.m.
ALSO READ: 'I want Vance to apologize': We went to Springfield and found community hurt — and divided
"Due to the safety threats of nearby locations, we are going to proceed with added caution today and dismiss school at 10:00 (for grades PK-5) and 10:15 (for grades 6-12)," the post reads. "We will run dismissal logistics normally, but simply do so at 10:00 and 10:15. Busses will not run today."
Five minutes earlier, Vance wrote on X, "Don't let biased media shame you into not discussing this slow moving humanitarian crisis in a small Ohio town. We shoudl [sic] talk about it every single day."
These evacuations occurred amid a week of chaos in Springfield as Vance and Trump focus their political rhetoric on the town.
A bomb threat forced evacuations at Springfield City Hall and “information received from the State Fire Marshal" spurred another evacuation from Fulton Elementary School Thursday, reports show.
Earlier in the week, Vance spread the false claim on X that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating pets, a claim sourced back to a questionable Facebook post and denied by Springfield police.
Trump repeated the claim during his first debate against Harris.
"They're eating the dogs," he said. "They're eating the pets of the people who live there."
News of multiple school evacuations in Springfield spurred outrage from onlookers who blamed Trump and Vance for rhetoric they characterized as misleading and dangerous.
"Every newspaper front page and every newspaper editorial board should, tomorrow morning, call for JD Vance to step down from the race, after the Ohio senator helped incite terror threats against a town hall and two schools in his *own state*," wrote journalist Mehdi Hasan. "Shameful. Scandalous. Sick."
"Donald Trump and JD Vance are terrorizing schoolchildren," added constitutional attorney and political analyst Andrew Seidel Friday. "They are unfit for any public office, let alone the highest."
