Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) stated on Tuesday night that memes shared by Republicans regarding Haitian migrants allegedly killing and eating cats and ducks have pressured the media to address the broader impacts of the southern border crisis.

During his appearance, Vance referenced unproven claims mentioned by Republican nominee Donald Trump about Haitian migrants engaging in such actions in a town, which have sparked a wave of memes among conservatives on social media.

Speaking with CNN host Kaitlan Collins, Vance said his senatorial office had received reports on this issue and urged journalists to investigate the matter further, adding to the ongoing debate surrounding the border crisis and its portrayal in the media.

“First of all, city officials have not said it’s not true. They said they don’t have all the evidence,” Vance said. “We’ve heard from a number of constituents on the ground Kaitlan, with first hand and second hand reports saying this stuff is happening. So they, very clearly, meaning the people on the ground dealing with this, think it is happening, and I think that it’s for journalists to actually get on the ground and uncover this stuff for themselves when you have people on the ground saying ‘my pets are being abducted, or geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us.’ This is crazy stuff.”

Vance argued that the media has largely overlooked the negative impacts illegal migrants have had on local communities across the U.S. He suggested that the viral meme phenomenon on social media, which involves unproven claims about migrants, has compelled the media to finally address these issues.

According to Vance, this online attention has forced journalists to start paying closer attention to the real consequences of the southern border crisis that many communities are facing.

“I think it’s interesting, Kaitlan, that the media didn’t care about the carnage wrought by these policies until we turned it into a meme about cats, and that speaks to the media’s failure to care about what’s going on in these communities,” Vance said. “If we have to meme about it to get the media to care, then we’ll keep doing it because the media should care about what’s going on.”

In a Tuesday tweet, Vance acknowledged that the allegations surrounding Haitian migrants killing and eating cats could be false.

However, he pointed to a separate tragic incident involving the death of an 11-year-old boy in Springfield, reportedly killed in a bus accident in August 2023, allegedly caused by a Haitian migrant.

Vance used this as an example of the broader issues tied to the border crisis and called for the continuation of the cat memes on social media as a way to draw attention to the challenges stemming from illegal immigration.