(RNS) — This week, outlandish allegations that, in a small city in Ohio, Haitian immigrants were hunting down and eating people’s cats, dogs and other pets spread across the internet, even making an appearance in the presidential debate. Though there’s no verifiable evidence of any case of a Haitian immigrant eating a pet — to say nothing of a trend that will soon threaten your pet — rumors spread quickly.
It was already an “old proverb” in the 19th century when Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon quipped, “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.” In the internet era, falsehoods move at light speed, and the biblical commandment to “not bear false witness” has become among the more socially acceptable sins.
That’s probably because it’s so easy: We can now disparage someone without personally articulating the charge, in either verbal or written form; we can reshare slanderous accusations with a tap of a finger or click of a mouse. Our human nature is apt to do so, dismissing any reluctance over an unverified charge if it seems credible to us, especially when the subject is an individual or group of people we’re predisposed to view as villainous.
But if we are to be faithful to the New Testament’s repeated instructions to put away slander of any kind, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We should refrain from propagating any disparaging charge that we cannot confirm to be factual, lest we, as the epistle of James puts it, “curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” That’s always true, but it’s all the more relevant in the midst of a polarized U.S. election season.
With the border a top campaign issue, immigrants are used as a political pawn and have increasingly been the subjects of online maligning. Beyond the allegations of pet-napping, the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are often presumed to be “illegals.” Multiple U.S. senators have used that term to describe individuals from Haiti, Venezuela and other specific countries facing political crises who have been allowed into the U.S. by the Department of Homeland Security after being sponsored by family members, churches or others — despite the fact that they are entering lawfully, at the invitation of our government.
There’s a fair debate over whether this particular “parole” program is an overuse of executive authority, but that’s a question for the courts or legislation (if a senator disagrees with the judicial decision that thus far has left the program in place). To describe the people themselves who have entered the U.S. lawfully through an airport as “illegal” isn’t just inaccurate, it’s also false witness, as it is when more than 800 people retweet these claims. That few of those re-tweeters have a nuanced understanding of U.S. immigration law does not exonerate them from the responsibility to not disparage people falsely.
Migrants seeking asylum line up while waiting to be processed after crossing the border June 5,