Mystery of the missing cat and other tall tales from Springfield, Ohio

Beneath the layers of distrust and decay, this city is an improbable success story

- Bhagyashree Garekar

Miss Sassy Pants went missing in late August. It was not unusual; curious and adventurous cats often wander away from home.

Her worried owner Anna Kilgore, a long-time resident of Springfield, Ohio, strayed too, mixing facts and fears in an unusual police report.

Her bizarre complaint claimed that immigrants from Haiti had stolen her cat and made a meal of it.

A few days later, Miss Sassy Pants was discovered in the basement, none the worse for wear. The grey-and-white Maine coon had apparently taken a break from being petted.

The chastened Ms Kilgore offered an apology through an app which translated her English to French Creole for her Haitian neighbours.

The matter could have ended there, but for two factors.

First, the briefly missing cat blew the cover off seething resentment in the city over the influx of thousands of Haitian immigrants, drawn by the promise of plentiful jobs and a low cost of living.

Second, former US president Donald Trump repeated the false story on national television during a debate with his Democratic rival, Vice-President Kamala Harris.

His words ricocheted around the globe. Within the US, the cat story sparked silly memes and serious conversations about the role of immigration in America's economy and national life ahead of the Nov 5 US presidential election.

In the days before the Miss Sassy Pants incident, neo-Nazi groups, searching for fertile grounds, had staged a march in the city. Days after the Trump-Harris debate, bomb threats disrupted schools, hospitals, business and government offices.

However, I noticed something of even greater consequence stirring in Springfield. It was not quite captured in the glare of the media attention that has upset residents, who have mostly been cast as petty racists or dangerous white nationalists.