Vance once called Haitians 'very sweet people.' That's not what he's saying now.

Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance apparently has some advice for "Childless cat ladies:" Better keep the felines locked up if you’re in Springfield.

After disparaging women without children, Donald Trump’s running mate moved on to the stereotyping of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, by promoting rumors that they were abducting pets and park animals − a claim city officials said had no credible evidence . Regardless, Trump ran with it in the presidential debate.

"They’re eating dogs ... they’re eating cats," Trump claimed in his Sept. 10 presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump has continued pushing those tales since the debate, with Vance cheering him on. "Don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing," Vance wrote in a post on X , formerly Twitter. Bomb threats since the debate that forced City Hall, schools and other government buildings to close in Springfield have been blamed on the anti-Haitian accusations.

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Trump clearly is trying to dehumanize the immigrants by spreading the false claims as he promises massive detention camps and mass deportations of migrants in a second term. Trump once called Haiti “a s---hole country."

Vance, who was in Haiti briefly while in the Marines, knows Haitians aren’t deserving of such ridicule. Having lived in Miami myself, home of a large Haitian community, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and having traveled to Haiti regularly to cover developments there for the Associated Press, I do too.

Haitians came to Springfield for jobs, not pets

The Haitians are being used to highlight an alleged failure of the Biden-Harris immigration policy, although anecdotally many of the at least 15,000 Haitians in the Ohio city were already in the country and came from Florida and other states because of job opportunities. The vast majority are in this country legally and have the necessary work papers, authorities have said.

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Springfield in recent years has had a job-creating economic resurgence, and employers were having trouble filling jobs − because of the same reasons Vance described in his "Hillbilly Elegy" memoir that some local white residents in his hometown of Middletown would rather exploit government assistance because of drug problems or "laziness."

Enter the Haitians, who have been praised by Springfield employers for their work ethic.

Kudos to Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine for stepping up on their behalf and shooting down the pet-abduction stories .

"This is something that came up on the internet and the internet can be quite crazy sometimes," DeWine said in a television interview. He said Springfield’s mayor said there was no truth nor evidence of the animal abductions. He praised Haitians as family-centric, hard-working people in search of economic opportunities.

The governor announced the state will provide $2.5 million to the city of some 60,000 people to help ease the strain on local health care and deploy Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers to improve road safety.

DeWine and his wife Fran for years supported a school in Haiti named in honor of their late daughter Becky , so he’s seen Haiti and why Haitians want to come to the United States for opportunity and safer lives.

'Never seen nor heard of even hungry Haitians eating dogs and cats'

Dr. Robert Lerer, former Butler County health commissioner, has repeatedly gone to Haiti on missions.

"I have worked in some of the poorest parts of Haiti, conducting medical clinics with groups of Christian volunteers, for more than a decade … I have never seen nor heard of even hungry Haitians eating dogs and cats," he posted recently on Facebook. Lerer said dogs are prized there for security and cats for catching rats.

I compared memories with some former Miami colleagues and none of us recalled such allegations about Haitians in the thriving and largely safe community they built centered in the city neighborhood dubbed "Little Haiti" in Miami. Nearly half of the more than 1 million Haitian immigrants in the United States live in Florida (Nearly 12 million people live in Haiti).

What we do remember is years of discrimination against Haitians, mostly Black, especially compared to immigrants from Cuba and other Latino countries.

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The Trump tales have alarmed Haitian leaders.

"The continued misrepresentation of Haitian immigrants is deeply troubling and concerning. Recent accusations that Haitians in Springfield are consuming pets and local wildlife are not only completely unfounded but also unacceptable. This rhetoric unfairly targets a community that has always contributed significantly to American society through hard work," wrote Leslie Voltaire, a member of the presidential transition council in Haiti. "Such narratives risk dividing and endangering already vulnerable communities."

Haiti-born actress Garcelle Beauvais was more succinct.

"As a Haitian woman, what is being said about us is despicable! Do better!" posted Beauvais, whose credits include "Spider-Man: Homecoming," "Coming 2 America," and "The Real Housewives of Miami."

Vance: Haitians 'very sweet people'

Vance, in his book, wrote that as a Marine, "I had seen, in Haiti, a level of poverty I never knew existed."

When I asked Vance about it a few months ago, he said it was a brief temporary assignment. "The thing I remember most about it; obviously a very impoverished country, very sweet people … I remember really just liking the people there that I met."

The former French colony has had a tortured history. A rebellion launched in 1791 resulted in 1804 the Caribbean nation becoming the first former slave colony in this hemisphere to achieve independence. Keep in mind that this was 30 years before the Caribbean’s major colonizer, England, ended slavery, and 60 years before the United States did. Worried about Haiti’s rebellion inspiring its own slaves, the United States ostracized the new nation and had a trade embargo.

"The thing I remember most about it; obviously a very impoverished country, very sweet people … I remember really just liking the people there that I met."

J.D. Vance

Ravaged by years of civil war, Haiti plunged into a near-endless cycle of poverty and instability, worsened by natural disasters including hurricanes and earthquakes and disease outbreaks including AIDS and livestock-killing African swine fever.

A new period of instability has followed since a 2021 presidential assassination. Armed gangs control most of the capital of Port-au-Prince and have killed civilians in their homes.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Haiti this month to discuss ways to help restore order, and when I interviewed Vance, he agreed that the nation deserved our help.

"We have one really important goal, which is to re-establish some measure of stability there," Vance said. "I don’t think we should be putting U.S. troops in harm’s way. I think our policy in Haiti should be first and foremost focused … on stability. We want people to be able to wake up, work a job, live their lives without the fear of being murdered. I think that is the level of chaos that exists in Haiti."

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"I believe it’s absolutely appropriate especially given that they are in our backyard to provide support so fewer and fewer people are suffering."

If Trump and Vance want to ease the pressure for Haitians to emigrate to the United States, they could treat their homeland as a valued neighbor by pledging such support instead of trying to scapegoat its people to score political points.

Dan Sewell is a regular Opinion contributor. Contact: dsewellrojos@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Vance once called Haitians 'very sweet people.' That's not what he's saying now.