I hadn't heard the cat eating allegations since I was a kid 65-70 years ago, but it wasn't illegals. We lived about 20 miles from Ashland KY and people still talked about a very popular Italian restaurant in the town that was shut down ten years before during WWII due to catching cats for it's spaghetti sauce. Apparently meat rationing was about to put them out of business. Instead, it was the health department. It took quite a while to bring their customers back in.