Around the same time that Springfield, Ohio, and its growing Haitian community made national headlines in September 2024, the New Diaspora Live radio station moved into a sleek new studio in a co-working building in the city’s downtown.
Haitian-Creole speakers from across the country called in, sharing tips with fellow listeners and discussing life in Springfield, the Rust Belt city of 60,000 people in western Ohio where thousands of Haitian immigrants had moved.
Today, the studio is gone, replaced by an Intuit TurboTax office. Phone numbers for its owner and its executive producer, both Haitian immigrants, are out of service. Its website domain has expired.
A 10-minute drive south, at a dated strip mall off Sunset Avenue, a similar story is playing out.
The Keket Bongou Caribbean restaurant that opened in 2024 shuttered its doors this week.
“I think every Haitian business is closed now,” said its owner, Ketlie Moise, who fled her home town of Gonaïves in northern Haiti after her mother was shot dead there in 2018.
Moise was moved 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 lunchtime, the fear of impending ICE operations in Springfield has forced her hand.
As a leader in her community, she said a lot of Haitians have left Springfield for Mexico, Chile and Brazil, but she doesn’t know 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 for Haitians who would self-deport.
“I am not safe in my country. I left my country because I lost my mom, they killed my mom,” she said. “It’s a long story, but I am not safe [there].”
Despite a judge in Washington DC ruling on Monday night to block the Trump administration ending temporary protected status for Haitians, there are growing concerns that teams of ICE agents may descend on Springfield’s streets and neighborhoods to detain Haitian immigrants, which could fuel a repeat of the deadly scenes of unrest that have swept Minneapolis, where 2,400 people have been detained and two US citizens shot dead by Ice officers.
A report from a local Springfield school administrator last week that was later walked back, suggested an immigration enforcement operation may take place in the city of 60,000 people during a 30-day “surge” beginning this week.
At more than 330,000 people, Haitian immigrants in the US account for the second largest number of people on TPS in the country. While many live in Florida, thousands of Haitians moved to Springfield beginning around 2018, attracted by the large number of entry-level jobs, affordable housing and a general environment of safety.
Thousands of Haitians are thought to have since left the Ohio city following the furor prompted by false claims from Donald Trump in September 2024 that immigrants in Springfield were eating pets, marches by neo-Nazi groups on Springfield’s streets and Trump’s election to the White House the following November. Still, about 10,000 to 15,000 Haitians are believed to have remained in Springfield, nearly all of whose immigration status involves TPS or asylum, or both. Following the loss of humanitarian parole last year and the threatened end of TPS, recent months have seen thousands apply for asylum given the threat to life and security in Haiti.
For Casey Rollins, who has worked with an estimated 8,000 Haitian immigrants in her role as executive director at the local St Vincent de Paul chapter, it’s the nine children from two families who in December lost their parents to deportation who stick in her mind.
“They are with extended family, which is great. But then there is the threat of the extended family getting deported,” she said.
On the whole, Rollins said that she was not hearing that Haitians are leaving Springfield in large numbers, despite the threat of an ICE operation.
“I’m hearing that people are afraid to move. They don’t know where to go and they’re not going to see any safety anywhere else, so it’s a lesson in futility for them to move anywhere.”
Then there’s the fear for the future of an estimated 1,500 children born in Springfield – US citizens – to Haitian parents who now could face deportation.
There’s been a surge in the demand for power of attorney support in anticipation of deportations and incidents that could see children and parents separated. “The goal is to give them that temporary connection to another family so that they can get back with their parents, wherever their parents are,” said Rollins.
“Children need an opportunity not to be separated from their parents.”
The ruling by Ana Reyes, a US district judge, on Monday doesn’t eliminate the threat of deportation for Haitians, merely allowing for a pause while a lawsuit challenging the administration’s termination effort proceeds.
Many locals are concerned that, unlike Minneapolis, law enforcement in Springfield – a city run by a Republican mayor in a state that has overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the past three presidential elections – may cooperate with federal immigration officers hunting Haitian immigrants.
When at a town hall held to discuss the potential for ICE activity before Christmas, Springfield’s police chief was asked if her department was cooperating with ICE. She declined to give a direct answer, saying only that Springfield police were in contact with US marshals and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Last week, Springfield’s city commission passed a resolution calling on border and ICE agents to adhere to local policies regarding mask wearing and the carrying of identification on their person. The city has no ability, however, to compel ICE or other federal agents not to wear masks should an operation take place here.
“We do not have any new operations to announce at this time, but DHS enforces the laws of the nation everyday 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 took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto asylum program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades.”
In November, the DHS announced free plane tickets and a $1,000 “exit bonus” for Haitians. Last month, that was raised to $2,600 for all “illegal aliens”.
The spokesperson declined to respond to a question asking why Haiti is deemed safe enough by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, for her to want to terminate TPS and force Haitians to return while the Department of State simultaneously maintains that Haiti is a “level 4 – do not travel” country.
Rights groups and news reports suggest there is little evidence that Haiti’s security and humanitarian circumstances have improved at all. A recent report by an Associated Press photojournalist on patrol with police in Port-au-Prince documented the lawlessness afflicting 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 location in the Haitian capital.
Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has advocated for Haitian immigrants remaining in Springfield but has stopped short of publicly calling on the Trump administration to prevent an ICE operation 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 activities by gangs in the area and after several students were killed in the unrest that has racked the country for more than a decade and a half.
“Overwhelmingly what we’re hearing is that Haiti is not an option for people. They are certain that they will be subjected to violence, torture and even killed,” said Katie Kersh, a senior lawyer at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (Able), a non-profit in Dayton that has worked with more than 1,000 people seeking TPS authorization.
Kersh said one client she recently worked with expressed fear about potentially being sent back to Chile, where they had previously lived. “He showed us police reports about how they burned down his house. People are not feeling safe in other countries.”
And yet, there’s a cohort of Springfield residents, many of whom have seen their town experience steady decline for half a century, who have delighted in 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 running mate JD Vance’s false claims against Haitians, than he did in the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden. Some ascribed the support for Trump’s policies to the infrastructural strain that a large new population placed on Springfield’s healthcare and education resources.
In local Facebook groups and online chatrooms, conspiracy theories and personal attacks on local leaders, fueled by extremist groups such as the Blood Tribe, have run wild. Much of the ire has been directed at leaders such as Rollins and Robert Rue, the Springfield mayor.
Rue declined an interview with the Guardian, and calls and emails sent to the Republican party of Clark county, one of two entities claiming to represent Republican voters in Springfield, were not responded to.
All the while, the city’s rental market has cooled significantly in recent months, following years of growth fueled in part by the influx of Haitian immigrants. Since November 2024, the month of Trump’s election win, the number of employed individuals in Springfield’s Clark county, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis has dropped.
But while local metalworks businesses, multinationals such as Amazon and Dole Fresh Vegetables and landlords welcomed the Haitian community for their reliable labor and rent, locals say the community 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 opened real estate businesses and specialty stores. The Sunday morning celebrations at Haitian churches were legendary.
Moreover, the mini-markets and restaurants such as those run by Moise allowed Springfield residents the chance to engage with a part of the world that they would never otherwise experience.
Despite Haitians securing a temporary reprieve, or whether Trump and his fellow Republicans falter in midterm elections later this year, as analysts predict, many believe the damage that has been done is now irreparable.
“I don’t know if I will open [the restaurant] again,” said Moise, who employed half a dozen people in her kitchen who are now out of a job.
“Everybody is scared.”
