A Louisiana congressman’s post on X claiming that Haitian people participate in “eating pets,” practice “vudu,” and come from the “nastiest country in the western hemisphere” sparked widespread outrage on Wednesday.
“All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th,” Clay Higgins’ post concluded. (Note: These immigrants from Haiti are in the United States legally.)
Two hours later, the racist post was deleted from the Republican House member’s official account, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus were calling for Higgins to be censured.
Higgins’ diatribe was sparked by a Haitian community group in Springfield, Ohio, filing criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, after they repeatedly—and falsely—claimed Haitian immigrants were kidnapping and eating cats and dogs.
While the claims were quickly debunked by city officials, that hasn’t stopped Trump and Vance from continuing to spread the lie—and it hasn’t kept MAGA supporters from believing it. Springfield residents have faced tangible consequences as a result of the racist political rhetoric, with bomb threats forcing local children to evacuate from their schools.
Higgins, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, decided to pile on with his latest despicable tirade. The former cop and car dealership manager has a history of antidemocratic, racist, and violent behavior.
In 2016, Higgins resigned as captain of the St. Landy Parish Sheriff’s office after a viral video showed him threatening a group of Black gang members and calling them “thugs,” “heathens,” and “animals,” according to The Washington Post.
In 2020, during protests in response to the police murder of George Floyd, Higgins made alarming threats against black protesters in Louisiana.
“I’d drop any 10 of you where you stand,” Higgins wrote in a post that was also quickly deleted. “Nothing personal. We just eliminate the threat. We don’t care what color you are. We don’t care if you’re left or right. If you show up like this, if we recognize threat…you won’t walk away.”
The Acadiana Advocate reported that Facebook removed the post because it violated the site’s “violence and incitement” policy.
During a 2021 interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Higgins asserted that fraud was committed during the 2020 election. When prompted by Sciutto to “cite one example” of his evidence, Higgins couldn’t muster any answers other than repeating, “We have preponderance of evidence.”
In 2023, on the day Trump was indicted for his handling of classified documents, Higgins posted some vaguely threatening instructions on the site then known as Twitter.
“This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors,” he wrote. “Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Higgins’ post was “vile, racist, and beneath the House of Representatives” in a post on X.
“The extreme MAGA Republicans in the House are unfit to govern,” Jeffries said.
