US President Joe Biden today asked Republican White House candidate Donald Trump to stop stoking tension against Haitian immigrants by spreading degrading rumors that the people eat cats and dogs.

“It is simply unfair that the proud Haitian community is under attack at this time in this country. This has to stop, what he is doing, has to stop,” Biden said at a White House event. “There is no place in America” ​​for such allegations, he added.

A little earlier, Springfield authorities announced that, after yesterday’s town hall, today they ordered the evacuation of several schools. This small Ohio town has been at the center of the controversy since Monday, which was started by the radical right and fueled by Trump saying on the teleconference with Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants steal dogs and cats to eat them.

Although local police flatly denied it, as did several media outlets that verified the report, the Republican mogul has repeated it several times in recent days.

Two primary schools and a college were closed today, local officials said. Yesterday, the town hall was evacuated after a bomb threat.

Federal police are also investigating threats made Thursday against a Haitian shelter in the same city, according to the center’s director, Will Dorsenville, who spoke of insults and “exhortations” to community members to leave.