Springfield, Ohio: Deportations of Haitian Migrants Reshape the Town Again
In Springfield, Ohio, home to an estimated 20,000 Haitians who arrived in recent years, the Trump administration has ended their Temporary Protected Status. The town has become a contested symbol ahead of the US midterm elections.
Springfield, a town in Ohio that President Donald Trump says is now "getting its town back", is being reshaped again after his administration ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians. TPS is a humanitarian protection that lets vetted people live and work legally in the United States. The issue has gained weight ahead of the US Congressional midterm elections, in which Ohio is a swing state and one of two Republican-held Senate seats is up for grabs.
A political symbol
In 2024, Trump repeated a false claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in the town. At a rally in Youngstown earlier this month, he said about 35,000 Haitians had been dropped there and that they would soon be gone. Others see Springfield as an example of a familiar cycle: the decline of traditional industry, followed by a rise in immigration driven by cheap housing and low-paid labour.
Within the past five years, an estimated 20,000 Haitians arrived in the town, many fleeing the 2010 earthquake or the violence that followed the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. Many took low-paid jobs in factories and distribution warehouses.
In June, the US Supreme Court upheld the administration's decision to end TPS for some 350,000 Haitians. In total, more than a million immigrants from 13 countries have lost the status. Haiti carries the US State Department's highest, Level 4 "Do Not Travel" warning, though the administration argues it is safe enough to return to.
Personal stories
Pierre Damas Bel, 20, arrived in 2024 to join his father and stepmother. A family friend described him as an honours student and talented athlete. After Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fitted him with an ankle monitor, he wrote on Instagram of "shame and humiliation". On 31 August he walked into oncoming traffic near Springfield and was killed. His family blamed the monitor; ICE rejects attempts to blame it.
Rick Johnson, a Marine veteran and lifelong resident, supports the deportations but says his concern is the number of arrivals and the speed of change. Grocery owner Paschur Castelly says he cannot restock because customers have stopped coming.
