Despite TPS stay, thousands of Haitians in Ohio face uncertainty and fear of ICE | US immigration

AAround the same time that Springfield, Ohio, and its growing Haitian community made national headlines in September 2024, radio station New Diaspora Live moved into a sleek new studio in a coworking building in the city’s downtown.

Haitian-Creole speakers from across the country called in, sharing advice with other listeners and discussing life in Springfield, the Rust Belt city of 60,000 in western Ohio where thousands of Haitian immigrants had settled.

Today, the studio is gone, replaced by an Intuit TurboTax office. The phone numbers of its owner and executive producer, both Haitian immigrants, are out of service. Their website domain has expired.

A 10-minute drive south, in an outdated strip mall near Sunset Avenue, a similar story unfolds.

Caribbean restaurant Keket Bongou which opened in 2024 closed its doors this week.

“I think all Haitian businesses are closed now,” said its owner, Ketlie Moise, who fled her hometown of Gonaïves, in northern Haiti, after her mother was shot dead there in 2018.

Moise was inspired to open a restaurant in Springfield, she said, because the community encouraged her to do so and because she loves cooking. Despite a steady stream of customers at the restaurant last Friday noon, fear of ICE’s impending operations in Springfield forced his hand.

As a leader in her community, she said many Haitians have left Springfield for Mexico, Chile and Brazil, but she doesn’t know of a single person who has returned to Haiti, despite the Trump administration offering free flights and the equivalent of more than a year’s salary to Haitians who self-deport.

“I am not safe in my country. I left my country because I lost my mother, they killed my mother,” she said. “It’s a long story, but I’m not safe [there].”

Despite a Washington, D.C. judge’s decision Monday night to block the Trump administration from ending Haitians’ temporary protected status, there are growing fears that teams of ICE agents will take to the streets and neighborhoods of Springfield to arrest Haitian immigrants, potentially fueling a repeat of the deadly scenes of unrest that swept Minneapolis, where 2,400 people were arrested and two U.S. citizens shot dead by ICE agents.

A report from a local Springfield school administrator last week, which was later republished, suggests an immigration enforcement operation could take place in the city of 60,000 during a 30-day “surge” beginning this week.

At more than 330,000 people, Haitian immigrants in the United States represent the second largest number of people receiving TPS in the country. While many live in Florida, thousands of Haitians moved to Springfield around 2018, attracted by the large number of entry-level jobs, affordable housing and a general environment of safety.

Thousands of Haitians are believed to have since left the Ohio city following fury over Donald Trump’s false claims in September 2024 that immigrants in Springfield were eating pets, marches by neo-Nazi groups through the streets of Springfield, and Trump’s election to the White House the following November. Still, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Haitians are believed to remain in Springfield, almost all of whose immigration status involves TPS or asylum, or both. Following the loss of humanitarian parole last year and the threat of an end to TPS, in recent months thousands of people have sought asylum given the threat to life and security in Haiti.

For Casey Rollins, who has worked with about 8,000 Haitian immigrants in her role as executive director of the local St. Vincent de Paul chapter, it is the nine children from two families who lost their parents in December following deportation that stick in her mind.

“They live with extended family, which is great. But then there’s the threat of the extended family being evicted,” she said.

Overall, Rollins said she hasn’t heard that Haitians are leaving Springfield in large numbers, despite the threat of an ICE operation.

“I’ve heard that people are afraid to move. They don’t know where to go and they won’t find security elsewhere. So it’s a lesson in futility for them to move anywhere.”

Then there is fear for the future of approximately 1,500 children born in Springfield – American citizens – to Haitian parents who could now be deported.

There has been an increase in demand for powers of attorney in anticipation of evictions and incidents that could result in the separation of children and parents. “The goal is to give them that temporary connection to another family so they can return to their parents, wherever they are,” Rollins said.

“Children need to be able to not be separated from their parents. »

Monday’s ruling by Ana Reyes, a U.S. district judge, does not eliminate the threat of deportation for Haitians, merely allowing a pause while a lawsuit challenging the administration’s cessation efforts continues.

Many residents fear that, unlike in Minneapolis, law enforcement in Springfield — a city led by a Republican mayor in a state that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in the last three presidential elections — may cooperate with federal immigration agents pursuing Haitian immigrants.

At a town hall meeting held to discuss potential ICE activity before Christmas, Springfield’s police chief was asked whether his department was cooperating with ICE. She declined to give a direct answer, saying only that Springfield police were in contact with U.S. marshals and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Last week, the Springfield City Commission passed a resolution calling on border agents and ICE to adhere to local policies regarding mask wearing and carrying identification on their person. The city, however, does not have the ability to force ICE or other federal agents not to wear masks if an operation took place here.

“We have no new operations to announce at this time, but DHS enforces the nation’s laws every day across the country and will continue to do so, including in Ohio,” a department spokesperson wrote in an email, without responding to specific questions from the Guardian.

“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that occurred over 15 years ago. It was never intended to be a de facto asylum program, and yet that is how previous administrations used it for decades. »

In November, DHS announced free plane tickets and a $1,000 “exit bonus” for Haitians. Last month, that amount was increased to $2,600 for all “illegal aliens.”

The spokesperson declined to answer a question asking why Haiti is deemed safe enough by Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, that she wants to end TPS and force Haitians to return while the State Department simultaneously maintains that Haiti is a “Level 4 – do not travel” country.

Rights groups and news reports suggest there is little evidence that the security and humanitarian situation in Haiti has improved. A recent report by an Associated Press photojournalist on patrol with police in Port-au-Prince documented the lawlessness gripping the country, where gangs control the majority of the city. Last week, the US embassy in Port-au-Prince warned of heavy gunfire around its headquarters in the Haitian capital.

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has advocated for Haitian immigrants to stay in Springfield, but has not publicly called on the Trump administration to prevent an ICE operation from taking place in the city. He and his wife Fran run a school in Port-au-Prince named after their deceased daughter, Becky. In March 2024, the school was closed due to violent gang activity in the area and after the deaths of several students in the unrest that has ravaged the country for over a decade and a half.

“The bottom line of what we’re hearing is that Haiti is not an option for people. They are certain they will be subjected to violence, torture and even killed,” said Katie Kersh, senior attorney at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (Able), a Dayton nonprofit that has worked with more than 1,000 people seeking TPS clearance.

Kersh said a client she recently worked with expressed fear of potentially being sent back to Chile, where he had previously lived. “He showed us police reports about how they burned down his house. People don’t feel safe in other countries.”

And yet there is a cohort of Springfield residents, many of whom have seen their city in steady decline for half a century, who welcome Trump’s mission to rid Springfield and the country of immigrants. Trump won more votes in Springfield’s Clark County in 2024, at the height of his and his running mate JD Vance’s false claims against Haitians, than in the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden. Some attributed support for Trump’s policies to the infrastructural strain that a large new population placed on Springfield’s health and education resources.

In local Facebook groups and online discussion forums, conspiracy theories and personal attacks against local leaders, fueled by extremist groups such as the Blood Tribe, have spread. Much of the anger has been directed at leaders such as Rollins and Robert Rue, the mayor of Springfield.

Rue declined an interview with the Guardian, and calls and emails sent to the Clark County Republican Party, one of two entities claiming to represent Republican voters in Springfield, received no response.

Meanwhile, the city’s rental market has cooled significantly in recent months, after years of growth fueled in part by an influx of Haitian immigrants. Since November 2024, the month of Trump’s election victory, the number of people employed in Clark County in Springfield, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has declined.

But while local metal companies, multinationals such as Amazon and Dole Fresh Vegetables, and landlords have welcomed the Haitian community for its reliable labor and rent, residents say the community has brought much more than that to a city that has lost about a quarter of its population since the 1970s.

Before Trump’s lies, the community held annual flag days at a local park to celebrate Haiti’s independence from France. Haitian entrepreneurs have opened real estate businesses and specialty stores. Sunday morning celebrations in Haitian churches were legendary.

Additionally, convenience stores and restaurants such as those operated by Moise have allowed Springfield residents to experience a part of the world they would never have known otherwise.

Even if Haitians are granted a temporary reprieve, or if Trump and his fellow Republicans fail in midterm elections later this year, as analysts predict, many believe the damage done is now irreparable.

“I don’t know if I will open [the restaurant] again,” said Moise, who employed half a dozen people in his kitchen who are now out of work.

“Everyone is scared.”