President Donald Trump attacked Haitian and Somali immigrants at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday, October 12, and repeated his false claim that Haitians in Springfield had eaten pets, the Associated Press reported.

Referring to the claim he first made in a 2024 presidential debate, Trump said, “I was right,” and boasted that Haitians were being driven out by his administration's policies. “They're getting their town back,” he said of Springfield's longtime residents.

The pet-eating claim was based on a secondhand Facebook post whose author deleted it and apologized, saying she had no evidence it was true. Local officials found no evidence to support it.

Springfield, a city of about 60,000, received roughly 15,000 Haitian immigrants in recent years. The administration has since ended Temporary Protected Status, which allowed more than 350,000 Haitians to live and work legally in the United States. Earlier this month, the city buried Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian student whose family and advocates linked his death to the loss of his status.

Trump was campaigning for Republican Senator Jon Husted, who faces Democrat Sherrod Brown in a competitive race. The rally came on the same day federal agents searched the Washington home of Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born Democrat.