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When PolitiFact is understood as a leftist political operation meant to further the psyop that Democrats have a monopoly on truth, the “fact-checking” organization’s “lie of the year” being awarded to a claim that hasn’t been proven false makes total sense.

On Tuesday, PolitiFact declared Republican claims of Haitian migrants “eating the pets” in the blue-collar community of Springfield, Ohio, the “lie of the year.”

“With a brazen disregard for facts, Donald Trump and his running mate repeatedly peddled a created story that in Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants were eating pet dogs and cats,” PolitiFact reported. “With this claim, amplified before 67 million television viewers in his debate against Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump took his anti-migrant, the U.S. border-is-out-of-control campaign agenda to a new level.”

Naturally, PolitiFact continued to link the allegations of Haitian pet-hunting to white nationalism.

“The earliest rumors PolitiFact found of Haitians stealing and eating pets and geese came in August amid a neo-Nazi group’s protest,” the group reported.

But given the media’s hostility to Springfield residents who raised concerns about the more than 20,000 Carribean arrivals in a town of roughly 60,000, is it any wonder that the propaganda press dismissed the cat-eating storyline as a neo-Nazi conspiracy? The New York Times had similarly written off allegations of migrants hunting domestic animals in the streets as charges with “deep roots in racist stereotypes, which depict foreigners as willing consumers of a variety of undesirable animals.”

To date, there are no verified public videos of Haitians in the U.S. conducting voodoo ceremonies with the dead animals of their blue-collar neighbors. But if the media were going to wait for that level of proof to take stories of taboo rituals seriously, they would never come around to reporting on the issue fairly. At the same time, giving the stories fair attention was never the point — even though there is more than enough evidence to suggest locals are telling the truth.

In September, The Federalist published audio of an Aug. 26 phone call in which a concerned resident told law enforcement he had spotted a group of Haitians carrying four geese into a vehicle before driving off. Days later, Ohio authorities confirmed that there had been another call to law enforcement related to Haitians hunting geese at local parks.

This call, placed on March 27, featured a resident who claimed to have witnessed three people pack a live duck and goose into a trash bag and drive away.

“Upon follow-up, no supporting evidence was found of wildlife being illegally removed from the park in either case,” said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).

Legacy outlets such as PolitiFact seized on that statement to dismiss the calls as illegitimate, despite reported eyewitness testimony of assailants abducting animals and fleeing the scene in both cases.

“Wildlife officials found no evidence to corroborate the claim,” PolitiFact reported Tuesday.

Multiple Springfield residents who spoke to The Federalist in September also shared stories of seeing fewer fowl in the parks and felines in the streets. One resident said she had even seen a male migrant carrying what looked like a dead goose by a park in the city’s west end, though the incident was just a minor episode compared to the time she says she was chased by a Haitian man wielding a machete. While tales of animal rituals captured national attention, residents have simultaneously grappled with an objectively self-evident public safety crisis in the city.

This spring, one migrant was found guilty of multiple felonies after smashing a local school bus off the road when driving without a license last year. The crash killed an 11-year-old boy and injured more than 20 other students on the first day of school. The Haitian driver was sentenced to at least nine years in prison instead of immediate deportation.

At a local city meeting in August, other residents offered testimonies that went viral and placed Springfield at the center of the nation’s immigration crisis.

“I have men that cannot speak English in my front yard screaming at me, throwing mattresses in my front yard, throwing trash in my front yard,” said a woman named Noel. “Look at me, I weigh 95 pounds. I couldn’t defend myself if I had to.”

“I don’t understand what you expect of us as citizens,” she added. “Who’s protecting us if we’re protecting them? Who’s protecting me?”

Tristan Justice is a national correspondent for The Federalist and the co-author of “Fat and Unhappy: How ‘Body Positivity’ Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself).” He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here. Buy “Fat and Unhappy” here.