A falsehood that migrants have killed wild animals and household pets for food ricocheted around the internet this week, vaulting from fringe social media posts to the presidential debate stage in a matter of days.

The claims were based on several unsubstantiated anecdotes and appeared to mix together unrelated stories about animal cruelty. The idea also has deep roots in racist stereotypes, which depict foreigners as willing consumers of a variety of undesirable animals.

Their rapid proliferation underscores how quickly bogus claims can spread on social networks. Thousands of posts mentioning the idea flooded social media this past weekend and surged Monday, according to Pyrra Technologies, a company that monitors social media.

It also signals the willingness of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to echo falsehoods and conspiracy theories as Election Day draws near. At the presidential debate Tuesday in Philadelphia, Trump raised the baseless claims about migrants to an audience of millions.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” he said, falsely, in a portion of the debate about immigration, offering no evidence. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

In recent weeks, he has also falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, that Democrats are conspiring to interfere with this year’s race and that Russian election interference is a “hoax.”

Among the first prominent people to share the falsehood over the weekend was Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of Turning Point USA, a conservative group. “Residents of Springfield, OH are reporting that Haitians are eating their family pets,” he wrote Sunday on X, sharing an undated post from a private Facebook group that has fewer than 9,000 members about crime in Springfield. Kirk’s post was viewed 3.9 million times.

The author of the Facebook post said a neighbor’s daughter’s friend had seen animal cruelty against a cat outside a house occupied by Haitian immigrants.

Officials for the city, which has a population of about 60,000, said they had seen “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community” and called the claims a persistent frustration. Springfield has grappled with a surge of immigrants in recent years, including 20,000 people from Haiti moving to the city since the pandemic.

Elon Musk, X’s owner, and Donald Trump Jr. amplified the story, reaching millions.

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, claimed Monday that “reports now show people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” His post was viewed more than 10 million times.

A campaign email to supporters in the afternoon also quoted the claims. Musk and Kirk did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Vance said his posts had been based on “a high volume of calls and emails over the past several weeks from concerned citizens in Springfield.”

The falsehood continued as influencers circulated a round of artificial intelligence-generated artwork mocking the situation or praising Trump.

“Protect our ducks and kittens in Ohio!” the official account for Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee wrote on X, including an AI-generated image of Trump hugging the two animals. It was seen more than 71 million times.

Other influencers shared AI-generated images that used overtly racist caricatures of Black men and women.

Vance appeared to backtrack Tuesday, writing on X that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.” But he encouraged supporters to continue repeating them, writing in a second post: “Keep the cat memes flowing.”

“Ultimately, the fact that this story relies on dubious evidence, unproven claims and fearmongering rather than facts doesn’t stop its spread at all,” said Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy- theory researcher. “The people sharing the memes want it to be true, so it’s true for them.”

Rumors that a cat was eaten also appeared to be linked to a woman who was arrested in August in Canton, Ohio, about two hours east of Springfield. Police officers were called by neighbors who had seen her outside next to a dead cat and claimed that she was on drugs. A police report said she had been found with blood on her “feet, hands, and fur on her lips.”

The woman, Allexis Telia Ferrell, 27, lives in Canton and pleaded not guilty to charges of cruelty to companion animals. The court has scheduled a hearing in October to determine her competency for trial. Her lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

Many posts said Ferrell was from Haiti, but birth records show that she was born in Ohio in 1997.

Other claims appeared connected to a Springfield City Commission meeting Aug. 27, when several residents railed against city officials over the Haitian population, whose rapid growth in the region has inflamed tensions among residents.

At the commission meeting, Anthony Harris, a social media influencer, made an unsubstantiated claim that ducks were being decapitated in the park as he complained about the lack of a police presence. On Tuesday, Harris posted a video to his Facebook page walking back his claims.