Texas Crime Data Help Discredit Haitian Migrant Pet Eating Claims

The state with the best data rebuts another nativist myth

Former president Donald Trump channeled internet rumors when he said that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating dogs and cats during the last presidential debate. This started a debate over whether Haitian migrants in Springfield, almost all of whom are legally present in the United States, were eating pets and other animals like geese. Older suggestive videos and images without Haitians and from cities other than Springfield were circulating. Vice presidential candidate JD Vance even joined in, defending Trump’s claims in the media. On the other side, Springfield police, the city government, and Republican governor Mike DeWine said there was no evidence of unlawful pet consumption. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo found a video of what he claims are cats on the grill in a neighboring town near where African immigrants live, but local police dispute that conclusion. There have been many bomb threats in Springfield in the meantime. Post-debate polls show that a bare majority of respondents think claims about Haitian migrants eating pets are false, with large minorities thinking the claims are either true or don't have an opinion.

This post supplies evidence that immigrants aren’t cruel toward animals. There’s been wonderful and ample reporting on Springfield, Haitian immigrants, and whether Haitian migrants in Springfield are eating pets (the answer appears to be “no”). But whether immigrants, in general, are eating pets or being cruel to animals is now a subtopic in the debate over how immigration affects the United States. When questioned about the veracity of claims regarding Haitians eating cats in Springfield, JD Vance said, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” So here goes.

The lack of evidence for disproportionate immigrant cruelty toward animals from Ohio is reassuring, but it's not systematic and isn't generalizable. Maybe Haitians in Springfield are eating animals they shouldn't and criminally abusing them, but immigrants elsewhere may be doing so. The degree of animal cruelty certainly does affect American culture, and if immigrants are disproportionately cruel, it would be a mark against them. Fortunately, Texas’ detailed crime data can reveal whether immigrants are more or less likely to be cruel to animals than native-born Americans in that state. As I wrote in a recent Cato policy analysis on illegal immigrant crime in Texas:

Texas is the only state that records criminal convictions and arrests by immigration status. Texas has this informa­tion because its law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal immigration enforcement authorities at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which checks the biometric information of arrestees in the state and tracks them through to their convictions. The Texas [Department of Public Safety] DPS keeps the results of these DHS checks, which they label as PEP, named after an earlier system that helped local law enforcement agencies identify illegal immigrant criminals. After criminal convictions, the TDCJ continues to investigate the immigration statuses of offenders incarcerated for some of the most serious offenses. This results in the identification and reclassification of legal and illegal immigrants who were previously categorized as other or unknown. The DPS then retains the results of both the DPS and TDCJ immigration checks.

When the “Haitians are eating our pets” story broke, I sent a Public Information Act request to the Texas DPS for data on criminal convictions and arrests for crimes against animals by immigration status. Texas DPS recently responded, and the data are analyzed below using the same methods employed in my earlier papers on illegal immigration and crime.

The immigrant criminal conviction rate for crimes against animals in Texas is 58 percent below that of native-born Americans in 2022 (Figure 1). The illegal immigrant criminal conviction rate is 66 percent lower, and it’s 52 percent lower for legal immigrants compared to native-born Americans in the same year. The same pattern holds over the entire period of 2013-2022. During the decade beginning in 2013, there were 3,569 total convictions in Texas for crimes against animals. Of those, illegal immigrants were convicted of 81 offenses, legal immigrants were convicted of 186 offenses, and native-born Americans were convicted of 3,302.

Native-born Americans were 82 percent of the population in Texas in 2022, and they accounted for almost 93 percent of all criminal convictions for cruelty to animals. Illegal immigrants were 7.1 percent of the population and accounted for 2.3 percent of all criminal convictions for cruelty toward animals. Legal immigrants were 10.8 percent of the population and accounted for just 5.2 percent of the convictions.  

There are numerous different crimes against animals in Texas, such as cruelty to livestock animals, cruelty to non-livestock animals, animal torture, cruelty related to abandonment, privation, transportation, overwork, and others. Figure 1 includes all crimes against animals, but cruelty to livestock stood out to me as a subcategory that’s different in kind. Farmers raise livestock for agricultural and work purposes, so they are a different category than pets. Thus, Figure 2 presents criminal convictions against animals that exclude those committed against livestock. The results are similar regardless of whether the analysis includes livestock.

Convictions data in Texas for the crimes of animal cruelty are obviously not data on Haitian migrant consumption of cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. However, we don't have data on criminal convictions by immigration status or country of origin in Springfield. The data from Texas are suggestive, and they may be generalizable, despite having some issues, as I explain here. Perhaps few immigrants who are cruel toward animals aren’t prosecuted or perhaps they’re less friendly toward our furry friends in other ways that wouldn’t be captured in criminal prosecutions for animal cruelty. Still, the Texas data help answer the questions of whether immigrants are crueler to animals nationwide than native-born Americans and whether more immigrants would result in more common animal cruelty in the United States. Immigrants in Texas are much less likely to be convicted of cruelty toward animals.