(Bloomberg) -- Officials in Springfield, Ohio, say they can’t predict how quickly President-elect Donald Trump might act on his campaign promise to deport Haitian migrants, but they are already bracing for the economic impact.
That’s because thousands of Haitian migrants are working at manufacturing plants, warehouses and other businesses in the southwestern Ohio region, doing jobs that companies had struggled to fill.
“They are filling a gap in our workforce,” Melanie Flax Wilt, a county commissioner, said in an interview in her Springfield office. “Employers are taking advantage of that opportunity to work with the Haitian community, and now this is going to turn it completely on its head.”
Local officials, business owners, migrants and advocates are on edge as they try to figure out what’s in store after Trump takes office Jan. 20.
Springfield drew international attention and bomb threats that closed down city schools and offices during the presidential campaign after Trump and running mate JD Vance falsely said that Haitian migrants there were eating pets. The politicians were amplifying claims made on social media amid a backlash against the new arrivals in the wake of a traffic accident involving an unlicensed Haitian driver that killed a young boy.
Social services and the local health care system in a county of about 135,000 people have struggled to cope with the influx of an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Haitian migrants during the past three years, drawn by the low cost of living and plentiful job opportunities.
Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has said most of the newcomers are there legally under the federal Temporary Protected Status program after fleeing violence and poverty in their home country. But Trump told NewsNation last month he would revoke that status for the migrants in Springfield and ensure their return to Haiti.
Katie Kersh, a senior attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality in Dayton who has worked with Haitian migrants in Springfield, said Trump tried to revoke TPS during his first term but was stopped by the courts. Trump may try again in a second term, though “I don’t know that it will happen as quickly as he’s making it sound like,” she said.
But Tom Homan, the former acting head of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency who Trump tapped to serve as his border czar, told a Cleveland radio host last week that the federal program can “end tomorrow,” making the Haitians subject to deportation.
Haitian migrants living and working in the Springfield area are “panicking” about Trump’s vow to deport them, according to Jacob Payen, a spokesman for the Haitian Community Alliance in Springfield and a small business owner.
Payen, a native of Haiti who said he moved to Springfield from Florida in 2021, estimated that hundreds of Haitian migrants have already moved out of the area or are seeking work transfers to other regions where they’d be less conspicuous after Trump’s election, based on his conversations with friends and the drop-off in customers at his religious goods store that caters to Haitians.
“They’re not well informed, so they feel like, ‘OK, he just became president today. Maybe as soon as he gets to the office, we’re all going to be out of here,’” Payen said.
Across the country, 863,880 foreign nationals with Temporary Protected Status are grappling with uncertainty about how long their protections will last once Trump is inaugurated. The recipients — from Haiti but also Venezuela, Ukraine, El Salvador and about a dozen other nations — are scattered across the US while facing the precarious reality that their status depends on decisions by the Department of Homeland Security.
Overseen by the agency’s secretary, TPS provides temporary relief from deportation and work authorization for individuals from countries facing crises like armed conflict or natural disasters — but it’s only temporary, lasting from six-18 months with the possibility of renewal.
Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said he would have no problem with Trump starting his deportation effort with undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes. But targeting Haitians who are living and working in Springfield legally goes too far, he said. A Republican serving in a nonpartisan position, Rue said he faced death threats and had a hate group show up at his house as the baseless rumors about pet eating were making headlines in September.
“Deporting individuals who are paying taxes and holding jobs, that’s a concern of mine,” Rue said in an interview at city hall. “That’s going to be a concern of every employer that has Haitian immigrants or other immigrants working for them.”
The Greater Springfield Partnership, whose members include businesses in the area that employ Haitian migrants, declined interview requests and referred questions to the city.
DeWine, who was born in Springfield and has done extensive humanitarian work in Haiti, said in an opinion piece for the New York Times before the election that Springfield fell into a serious economic decline in the 1980s and 1990s as manufacturing, rail commerce and good-paying jobs dwindled. But Springfield is having a resurgence in manufacturing and job creation, thanks in part to the influx of Haitians, he said.
“I was asked the question several weeks ago: What would happen if all the Haitians were gone from Springfield?” DeWine said during an Oct. 30 press conference. “And the reality is that some of the economic progress that we have made, that Springfield has made, would go away. Haitians came here to work. They were hired because they would work. They were hired because there were openings that could not be filled by companies.”
Voters in Springfield and Clark County were more supportive of Trump this election. He garnered 64% of the vote in the county during this month’s ballot, up from 61% in 2020. And after Springfield voters chose Joe Biden over Trump four years ago, they narrowly backed Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee this year, according to unofficial results.
Trump has focused on the Haitians in Springfield, but the expectation is that the president-elect would seek to revoke temporary protected status for Haitians nationwide, said Leonce Jean-Baptiste, executive director of the Haitian Association of Indiana. He said 20,000 to 30,000 Haitians have come to Indiana because of the low cost of living and available jobs.
“The fear is palpable in the community,” he said.
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