The Trump administration is making big changes to the immigration system. This includes ending Temporary Protected Status for seven countries so far this year, including for Haiti.
Federal data shows almost 350,000 Haitian immigrants had TPS in 2026 when the U.S. government ended this designation, directly impacting thousands in Springfield. Since 2013, an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 settled in the area, created businesses, bought property, sent children to schools and integrated into the community's social fabric. Many of them had TPS.
Now ICE agents are actively using apprehending Haitian immigrants, requiring them to wear ankle monitors or detaining them. WYSO reached out to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which responded: “Every day, DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe. DHS does not discuss ongoing or future operations.”
DHS has suggested that if immigrants don't want to go to their home country, they can go to another nation.
But, deporting to other countries is not a realistic option for many. WYSO’s Kathryn Mobley talked with two experts with the University of Dayton about current deportation options for Haitian immigrants. Immigration attorney Ericka Cannon and social anthropologist Miranda Hallett said, while DHS said these individuals can deport to other nations, it's not as easy as some believe.
This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kathryn Mobley: Ericka, the Department of Homeland Security says Haitian immigrants who are non-U.S. citizens can no longer legally stay in this country, and suggests if they don’t want to return to Haiti, they can go to another nation. Is it that simple for immigrants to pick up and go?
Ericka Cannon: No, it's not that simple.
You have to typically have visas and a valid passport from your country to go to other countries. So it would really be a case-by-case basis. It would depend on if they were able to get a visa to go to another country and what type of visa that was. And so it is not necessarily the case that people can pick up and go. And then people who also fear persecution in Haiti may not be able to get a Haitian passport if it's not safe for them to ask their own government for a passport, which is complicated for people who have asylum cases, where that may be a risk factor.
Mobley: And then gaining entry into another country, for example Canada or France, how does that work?
Cannon: They would have to have a Haitian passport and contact the immigration authorities in Canada to determine if they were eligible for a particular type of visa to enter Canada or France or wherever that would allow them to stay, to live, to work, depending on what types of visas are available. So that would be something that would be governed by those countries' laws. And the United States and Canada have an agreement where if you apply for asylum in the United States, where you arrive first in the United States, you must seek asylum in the U.S., or if you arrive first in Canada, you must seek asylum in Canada.
Mobley: Miranda, as a social anthropologist, you’ve spent decades studying migration. Talk about the U.S.’s complicated history regarding its immigration policies.
Miranda Hallett: Interestingly, about 100 years ago in the 1920s was another moment when there was a lot of polarized and intensely emotional politics around immigration. There was a strong anti-immigrant political movement that had a lot of political power,
And the 1920s, for that reason, actually saw the emergence of the border patrol, the emergence of controls at exits and entrances to the country, and some of the familiar components of the immigration system that we know today.
In the 1930s, the Supreme Court heard a series of cases about whether or not different national origin groups were white, which at the time you had to be white or of African descent to naturalize as a citizen in the United States. If you were Asian, if you were of any other ethnic status, you couldn't, according to the law at that time.
Some people who had had legal status like South Asians had it stripped from them through Supreme Court cases.
Mobley: Why come to the U.S.?
Hallett: It's all about where are there jobs? Where is there housing? Where is a place that people need us? People need new folks. So, and for the last several decades, the United States has been a really appealing place because we have a declining birth rate. We have an aging population. We have the baby boomers exiting the labor market and we have thriving economy. And that means we have demand for jobs.
Mobley: Some would say our nation is repeating those restrictive ideas. What might be some of the resulting economic impacts?
Hallett: Historically, immigrants are often, as newcomers to the society, willing to take jobs under conditions that a lot of native-born workers are not interested in.
So, for the most part, immigrant workers do not tend to compete with U.S. workers for specific jobs within labor markets. Rather, they tend to slot into complementary positions, things that for whatever reason U.S.-born workers are not willing or not interested in doing. That includes a lot of low-wage work, our caregiving industry, the agricultural industry.
But then there's also disproportionate representation of immigrants in some very highly skilled fields such as technology or medical fields. And in that instance, it's because there's literally just not enough people being trained up in those things in the U.S.
I do think that the current trends are, in terms of restrictions on immigrants, creation of a hostile environment for immigrants, even those with legal status. And in general, the massive investment of money in enforcement activities by the government — instead of investing that money in training, education, parks, any one of a number of other things they could be investing that money in — those are not good signs for the future of our economy.
If those trends continue, I predict that the United States will continue to slip in terms of global influence, global economic power, and political power vis-a-vis other global nations. This is putting us on a path that will lead to greater economic weakness.
On the other hand, negative impacts are much more at the human level. It's about children being taken away from school in the middle of their school year. It's about churches being broken up, people losing neighbors, people losing members of their family in cases where there are citizens and families that also have folks with other statuses.
We are organized into a mass global economy, but even more in our local communities, we depend on other.
