The case of the false cat devoured by immigrants

BarcelonaDuring the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump claimed without any evidence that immigrants of Haitian origin were eating their neighbors' cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. This had no real basis, and in any normal country it would have led to the politician's absolute disqualification, but in the United States, as everyone knows, Trump won the elections by a landslide. I've been thinking about this these days, seeing that some Spanish media outlets, mainly from the far-right sphere, have published news items denouncing that immigrants from Ceuta devour cats, pigeons, seagulls, and any other animal that runs through the streets. In one of these news items, a photograph was attached showing a dead cat next to a dumpster. Fortunately, the service of fact-checking from the Efe agency carried out the relevant checks and ruled that the photograph was not from now or from Ceuta, but rather from 2025 and from Gran Canaria.

Evidently, there is also no evidence that this is happening. It is true that some volunteers who feed the cat colonies in Ceuta have reported that some have disappeared, but nothing more.

In any case, and returning to Trump's case, to gauge the effect of the news, one only needs to read the comments, in which immigrants are described as "savage invaders," in what is a premeditated process of dehumanization of a group that, for my part, reminds me of the treatment that separatists received during the "Procés." Or like when Jews were accused of killing children to use their blood in rituals. But this is the key: when you dehumanize an entire group, then you can no longer feel any empathy for the individual people who are part of it. And how can you feel empathy for a person who kills and devours cats?