On September 25, Representative Clay Higgins (Republican-Louisiana), on his official congressional account, posted a fascist diatribe on X/Twitter threatening all Haitians, after a Haitian civil rights group filed suit against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for his incitement of violence against immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

In the now deleted post, Higgins repeated lies that originated with neo-Nazis that have since been taken up by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, accusing Haitians of “eating pets.”

The Republican campaign against immigrants serves two main purposes: to divide the working class and to create the conditions for Trump to incite paramilitary-type violence to change the results of the election. Higgins, a former cop and member of the Three Percenters fascist militia group, was one of 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election results after the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021.

In service of Trump’s campaign to incite violence, Higgins wrote Wednesday in his post, “Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu (sic), nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters ... but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP.”

In a deadly serious threat, Higgins ended his tweet with a warning: “All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th.”

Higgins deleted his post later on Wednesday but has continued to incite hatred against immigrants. In an interview with CNN, he doubled down on his comments saying, “It’s all true. I can put up another controversial post tomorrow if you want me to. I mean, we do have freedom of speech. I’ll say what I want.”

Higgins added, “It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life.”

House Democrats have begun to file a motion to censure Higgins for his remarks, but given the recess before the election, it is unlikely any action would be taken until after November.

Higgins’ fascist eruption was in response to civil criminal charges filed by the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) to the Clark County Municipal Court in Ohio this past Tuesday. Ohio statutes allow private citizens to file criminal charges that must be reviewed by a judge, who can either issue an arrest warrant or hold a hearing to determine if the case should move forward.

Lawyers for HBA are calling for Trump and Vance to be arrested and charged with Disrupting Public Services, Making False Alarms, Complicity, Telecommunications Harassment and Aggravated Menacing. In an interview with the Associated Press, lawyer Subodh Chandra said the group filed the charges after “inaction” by the local prosecutor.

In the court filing, HBA lawyers wrote that over “the last two weeks, both Trump and Vance led an effort to vilify and threaten the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio. Together, they spread and amplified the debunked claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are eating cats, dogs, and wildlife.

“The direct impact on Springfield, Ohio of Trump and Vance’s unrelenting lies cannot be overstated,” they added. “During the last two weeks, Springfield has received 33 bomb threats. Many public institutions have been forced to evacuate, and vital local resources were diverted to investigate the barrage of threats to the community.

“Like those who falsely shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater,” the lawyers wrote, “Trump and Vance do not color within the lines of the First Amendment. They commit criminal acts.”

Pointing to Vance’s previous statements that he has to “create stories” to pursue his political agenda, the lawyers wrote that these “lies have had devastating results.” Before Trump and Vance’s attacks, the lawyers claimed that Haitian immigrants:

found people in Springfield to be welcoming, nice, and helpful. But since the comments earlier this month, Haitians are receiving hostile comments and feel like they are constantly being watched by people at work and in their neighborhoods.

They wrote that “on or around September 12, 2024” a Haitian man was walking in downtown Springfield toward City Hall when a “white man driving by in a car yelled at him, ‘Trump is coming for you.’ He was frightened and did not know if the driver yelling at him was armed or would attack him.”

Others reported that they are:

feeling so scared that they do not feel like going to work because they do not know what could happen to them at work or on their way to work. Others have said they do not want to be out at night for fear of what could happen to them. They do not want to talk to people as they would have, like by asking for directions on the street, because they do not know whom they can trust or who may harm them.

Some say the “stress and unpredictability is so high” that they are “quitting their jobs and leaving Ohio for good.”

In an interview on CNN, Guerline Jozef, founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the group filed the charges to bring justice to the community and “to make sure that we understand the grave consequences of these narratives.”

Jozef added that currently “the city of Springfield is under siege. You have children unable to go to school, not just Haitian students, all the students in Springfield.”

In an interview with the World Socialist Web Site, John (not his real name), a professor at a college in Springfield, described the town as “on edge” in the wake of “Trump and J.D. Vance’s ridiculous, racist statements about Haitian immigrants.”

“I hear talk of a Proud Boy or even Klan presence in town. I haven’t seen them myself, so I can’t attest to the truth of the rumors that I’ve heard from a number of people. But the rumor, believe me, is enough to be menacing,” he said.

John added, “Bomb threats and hate speech are now a fact of daily life.  I have to admit that, while teaching, it was distracting to see law enforcement officers patrolling the halls at my college.”

A teacher in Springfield for 12 years, John said that before “I even knew about the increase in Haitian immigrants,” about “one or two” started to appear in his classroom every semester.

“Now it is about three or four, a little more regular. I vouch for them any day of the week,” he said. “They are incredibly conscientious students who are eager to learn and contribute positively to the learning environment.”

John described Springfield as “once prosperous in industry and innovation” but now is “marked by inequality.” He said that many Haitians live on the south side, which is “the working class part of town. They are walking, riding bicycles, driving. There is often a high Haitian presence at the strip mall on South Limestone. This strip mall, perhaps not coincidentally, is home to the new Rose Goute Creole Restaurants, owned and operated by a Haitian.

“I know several Americans who, disgusted with what is happening in Springfield, have made it a point, en masse, to eat at Rose Goute.”

Rejecting the framing advanced by the capitalist media and the Republicans that pits the working class against the Haitian immigrants, he added that the “immigrants are working class too. The Haitian population is now a large part of many Springfield workplaces, yet I haven’t heard any negative stories about workers butting heads in the workplace.”

While Republicans, such as Trump surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy, have descended on Springfield, John wondered, “Where are the Democrats, the party of liberal, open-minded, caring politicians who claim to work on behalf of immigrants? If we wait for them to show up, we’ll be waiting for a very long time.”