Explain Like I'm Five

As you should expect, the truth is actually between the extremes of “facist trope that is completely false” and “all immigrants are evil.” A person in Ohio recently killed and ate a cat, but was not an immigrant.

For anyone who doesn’t want to click the link, it contains bodycam video of a police officer in Ohio recently arresting a US citizen with blood all over her, fur in her teeth, a dead cat nearby, and multiple eye witnesses saying she killed and ate the cat.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13844919/bodycam-eating-cat-Ohio-trup-pets.html

Nothing to do with pets, but in Korea there are places that serve dog. At least it was the case when I was there 20+ years ago. But, of course they're not pets, they're farmed like any other livestock I would expect, and these places were not exactly commonplace even then, so maybe now they're just not a thing? I've not really looked into it.

Now, saying "x" people eat pets is likely just what others have said, a slur used against whichever subset of people is the target of the month. Maybe it once had roots in facts like those I've mentioned, but they're far removed from them now.

No, I did not partake in eating dog.

The 90s called, they want their dog whistle back

Cats are/were eaten in Vietnam. I have no idea about Haiti and it's impossible to search it currently. So, this is people jumping to conclusions that immigrants are eating pets.

It's an ancient fascist trope.

Dehumanising people makes it easy to hate and persecute them, and to blame them for a bunch of stuff which isn't their fault. It really is a classic move with a rich history.

old rich people like saying this shit... it is rooter in the slaver mentality of our dearest elites.

The "immigrant" group to shit on changes every so often where I live.

But when it changes the SAME rumors get saddled on to the new group.

"X group eats pets, better be careful around them."

"Y group will take your dog and butcher it. Better be watchful"

Because racism is learned. It's the same tired tropes they heard from their parents. Today's racists are racist against Central American and Caribbean immigrants. Twenty years ago it was the Middle East. In the 1970s it was southeast Asians. Before that were... everybody else. This is America. There's always some new cultural group to demonize.

These rumors/stories, whatever you want to call them, is all new to me, but its just a way to dehumanize a certain group and therefore helping to justify labelling them the new boogieman.

ELI5 Its a way to make a group of people appear less human and different from yourself. This makes it easier to not relate to them and use them as a bad/ evil example of something you want to avoid.

Your question is confusing, but I think the answer is...

Racist people heard something. Racist people think it's a fact. Racist people extrapolate from that thing they heard and assume the extrapolation is also a fact.

the old wise tale

Old wives tale. There’s nothing wise about it…

When I was growing up you'd hear stories about how the local Chinese immigrants would eat neighborhood cats when they caught them.

But our "Chinese" neighbours were actually Portuguese, and vegetarian.

Racists are going to be racist, regardless of reality

ELI5 How come it seems now the old wise tale of Vietnamese eating pets and now its immigrants into the USA?

I don't understand that sentence.