"An utter state of fear": In Springfield, Haitian immigrants quietly prepare for an exodus

Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been reeling since President Donald Trump won the election — his threats of mass deportation looming over their already uncertain futures. Now, the administration's decision to rescind the extension of their temporary legal status has put them on an expedited timeline to lose their protections and everything they've built in their new home.

First shoved into the spotlight during Trump's September 2024 presidential debate, residents, since the late February announcement on TPS, have been flocking to the Haitian Support Center in this rust-belt city of some 60,000 people, according to Viles Dorsainvil, the center's executive director. Many have called or stopped by in search of guidance on what to do next or what their options are, he said, but his advice is limited. 

"I continue to encourage them to know their rights," Dorsainvil told Salon. He's advised, for those who can, applying for a different form of legal immigration status. "That would be the best course of action — [and] continue to do what they're doing. That's it. I can't normally tell them anything different."

Some of the city's Haitian residents are planning to relocate to Canada or elsewhere, while others are waiting to see how Trump's crackdown on immigration plays out. Dorsainvil doesn't know anyone planning to go back to Haiti, he added, but as unlikely as it is, it's still an option. 

With just under five months before they lose legal status, everyone is on edge. One Haitian TPS recipient who previously spoke to Salon declined to talk, pointing to widespread concerns in the community over their future in the country.. 

In late February, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had revoked the extensions of TPS for Venezuelan and Haitian immigrants in the United States. TPS, granted to applicants regardless of their legal status from designated countries with immense political, violent or environmental upheaval, allows those who receive it to live and work legally in the U.S. for a renewable period of up to 18 months. More than 500,000 Haitian citizens were eligible for TPS as of June 2024, according to DHS data, including around 15,000 recipients living in Springfield. Unless re-extended or protected in federal court, that status will now expire on Aug. 3. 

"People just can't figure out why the administration is taking that move. They believe it's some kind of wickedness. Even the U.S. embassy in Haiti cannot operate properly because of the gangs and violence," Dorsainvil said, describing the shock that he and other Haitian Springfielders felt upon learning the news. "It's just some kind of injustice."  

He hadn't expected the revocation, he added, because he didn't think the president would want to further upend the Haitian community after spreading the false claims that beget a bevy of violent threats to Springfield. Plus, he said his administration knows the circumstances in Haiti are intolerable.

Haitian citizens have been eligible for TPS since 2010, when the Caribbean nation was hit with a devastating earthquake that displaced millions and decimated its infrastructure. A steep uptick in political violence, set off by the 2021 assassination of the country's president, has also resulted in thousands killed as gangs seized control of the government. Since then, Haitian citizens have sought refuge in other countries out of fear for their lives and a need for better opportunities.

Before he left office, President Joe Biden extended TPS for Haitian immigrants for an additional 18 months until Feb. 3, 2026. The Secretary of Homeland Security evaluates at least 60 days prior to the expiration of each TPS designation whether to extend or end the status based on the conditions in the country. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's decision partially vacated that extension, shortening it to just 12 months from the Aug. 4, 2024 effective date. 

In a statement accompanying the announcement last month, a DHS spokeswoman argued that the Biden administration had extended Haiti's TPS for "far longer than justified or necessary."

"We are returning integrity to the TPS system, which has been abused and exploited by illegal aliens for decades," the statement read. "President Trump and Secretary Noem are returning TPS to its original status: temporary.” 

But Julie Nemecek, an immigration lawyer working with Haitian clients in Springfield, argued that the administration has made the decisions arbitrarily, failing to account for the conditions in Haiti and Venezuela and acting out of racism. 

"They're just making these anti-immigrant decisions to scare people, to shock people, to implement white supremacy, Project 2025, whatever you want to call it," she told Salon in a phone interview. "These decisions are just wrong, and there's no justification supporting these decisions on TPS. It makes absolutely no sense."

Nemecek said she's received an "enormous" boon in calls from clients since Trump took office, her schedule packed largely with clients from Haiti, Venezuela and — more recently — Ukraine. 

The impacts of the Trump administration rescinding TPS extensions will be devastating, she predicted. With immigrants already struggling to get by, the community will likely see an increase in homelessness, mass layoffs as work authorizations expire and a mass exodus of people out of states like Ohio into places where they can work without documentation. Amid Trump's crackdown, losing status leaves a lot more migrants susceptible to detention and removal, she added. 

"It leaves people in pretty much an utter state of fear without a sense of security, sense of safety," Nemecek said. 

In many ways, Haitian immigrants' hands are now tied, she explained. While many would likely have a viable case for asylum, the timeline for approval isn't conducive to reobtaining status quickly. They'd spend a few weeks preparing an application, then wait 150 days followed by a 30-day adjudication period, leaving six months until they can receive work authorization. Even if they rushed to apply now, the soonest they could receive asylum would be in October and by then it'd be too late, she said. 

Complicating matters more, she added, is that a number of her clients are resistant to apply for asylum because they believe it's a comparatively "degrading" legal status to have. 

The situation is more volatile for migrants with removal cases, she added. Before Noem rescinded the extensions, courts generally terminated their removal cases if their TPS application had been approved, opening them up to apply for asylum. Now, however, judges are denying TPS applications because the statuses are set to expire — and appearing before a judge places migrants in the "hot seat."

Legal challenges to the DHS recissions could offer a more viable pathway, Nemecek said. "Those things take time, though. They don't provide an overnight solution."

Three immigrant rights organizations — Haitian Americans United, Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts and UndocuBlack Network — and four individual recipients filed a lawsuit in Boston federal court earlier this month challenging Noem's decision. In addition to arguing that the move is unlawful and racially biased, they asked the court to halt the revocations, which would also terminate TPS for Venezuelan immigrants on April 7. 

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"The TPS statute does not authorize the Secretary to pull the rug out from under vulnerable TPS recipients and rescind an extension that has already been granted; she simply has no statutory authority to do so," the complaint said. 

A hearing on the motion to stay Noem's revocations was postponed Tuesday in deference to a hearing in a similar case currently before a California federal court.  

As members of his community scramble for options and prepare to uproot their lives, Dorsainvil said he wants Americans to understand how little, if at all, the administration acknowledges immigrants' contributions to the nation's stability and progress. 

"They should know that the administration is not doing justice to the immigrants who have been contributing to this country for over 20 years or 15 years, 10 years, five years," he said, arguing that the Trump administration is attempting to strip TPS recipients of their legal status so it "can remove them as soon as possible." 

But immigrants, he added, will find a way forward as they have before.

"A human being has that kind of survival instinct," he said. "They will do things that is not right just to survive, and who will be responsible for that?"