The woman who appears to have inadvertently sparked a viral far-right hoax that Haitian migrants working in Springfield, Ohio, are kidnapping and eating people's cats and dogs has come forward to say she regrets that her social media post caused so much confusion.
Former President Donald Trump even promoted the claim at the presidential debate on Tuesday, and had to be shut down by moderators. Meanwhile, schools in the area have had to be evacuated for bomb threats.
It turns out that the rumor can be traced to one woman's Facebook post, reported NBC — and she is coming forward to apologize for all the chaos it created.
According to the report, Erika Lee, a resident of Springfield, posted to Facebook commenting on a neighbor's cat who had gone missing — and mentioned that the neighbor had been suspicious the cat might have been attacked by Haitians who lived in the neighborhood.
There was no evidence to support the claim. Moreover, cats often go missing for various reasons, especially those allowed to wander outside.
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Lee, for her part, feels terrible that her post exploded into a xenophobic panic against the Haitian community, and for the confusion and fear the post caused.
“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” she told NBC News.
Trump, meanwhile, has not offered any apology or retraction for his claims about the Haitian migrants in Springfield, who are in the United States legally and filling vital jobs in a Midwest factory town that for years had been in decline.
He has even suggested that if elected, his administration will order mass deportations of the migrants from Springfield.
