A report from Springfield, Ohio
By Democracy Now
HAVANA TIMES – The Haitian community is bracing for mass deportations after the Supreme Court last month sided with the Trump administration to end TPS, or Temporary Protected Status, for over 300,000 Haitians as well as thousands of Syrians who fled violence in their home countries.
According to an internal government document, the plans to round up and deport Haitian immigrants could start this week. President Trump has long expressed animus toward Haitians in the United States. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he amplified false claims that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs.
“The fear is so huge in our community,” says Vilès Dorsainvil, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio. Due to the risk of violence in Haiti, the US government is warning United States citizens not to travel to the country. For many Haitian immigrants who fled to the US for safety, “they do not have a country to go back to.”
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: ICE is reportedly stepping up plans to arrest and deport Haitians after an estimated 300,000 Haitians just lost their status under TPS, the Temporary Protected Status program. The program ended on Monday after the Supreme Court last month sided with the Trump administration to end TPS programs for Haitians and Syrians.
Since that ruling, panic and fear have swept through Haitian communities across the United States. According to an internal government document, the plans to round up and deport Haitian immigrants could start as early as this week. The planned deportation operations outlined in the internal government document could focus in part on the thousands of Haitians who live in Ohio, many of whom live and work in the city of Springfield.
AMY GOODMAN: During the 2024 presidential campaign, Vice President JD Vance and President Trump amplified racist, baseless claims that Haitians in Springfield were eating people’s pets, their dogs and cats. In an interview with CBS News on Monday, Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine described the Trump plans to deport Haitians as a “mistake.”
GOV. MIKE DEWINE: It’s not good for the United States, and it’s not good for the state of Ohio. These are people who have helped Springfield really come back. Springfield has been making a real, real comeback. The Haitians who are living there and employed there, they came there to work. And they came there because there were jobs that were not being filled by other people. … And so, to lose them and have them not be able to work anymore, and possibly, you know, taken out of this country, is, frankly, a blow to Springfield, and it’s a blow to the state of Ohio.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, that is Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine.
For more, we go to Springfield, Ohio, where we’re joined by Vilès Dorsainvil. He is the co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield and is among the over 300,000 Haitians in the U.S. who have just lost their TPS, temporary protected status.
In these last minutes we have, Vilès, if you can talk about the fear people have? What are people doing, including yourself, this week, losing your TPS status?
VILÈS DORSAINVIL: Thank you for having me.
I think that the fear is so huge in our community, especially when folks know that they won’t be able to continue to live here. And now I believe that DHS has changed the strategy. Over the past few days, they started sending call-in check letters to folks. And when they get to those facilities, they just put ankle bracelets on their feet. It is so humiliating to see parents, fathers and mothers, who have not been committing any crime, now with some type of ankle bracelets on their feet. And that has created so much fear. Not only those folks, they lost their jobs, they lost the privilege to drive, and now they have a bracelet on their feet on a daily basis. And they give them one month’s time to go back to court. So, it’s really humiliating to see that happening to our people in our community right now.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Vilès Dorsainvil, if you could talk about, you know, the conditions prevailing now in Haiti, why so many Haitians have fled the country, and what it would mean for them to be — the ones here, to be deported back to Haiti?
VILÈS DORSAINVIL: Basically, I always tell people that it’s not a question of us not willing to go back to our country. So, now if I can describe for you a little bit the condition of our country, we have an international airport that has not been in operations for over the past two years, because when US American aircraft landed at that particular airport, the gang members shoot at them. We have more than 1.3 million people who have been displaced, and 5 million people are in acute food insecurity. So, there are women and girls who live in shelters on a daily basis, people who are being raped, exposed to rape.
So, this is the condition. We have a government that just cannot deliver political goods. And actually, the gang members, they become stronger and stronger on a daily basis. This is the condition of Haiti, and there is no job opportunity. There is no Haitian dream for those folks. And these are the push factors that cause them to leave the country. So, I think that the Haitians here, they are willing to go back, but at the end of the day, they do not have a country to go back to.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the US government understands full well how dangerous it is to go back to Haiti. They have warned US citizens not to go to Haiti. In this last few seconds we have, Vilès, you have lost your TPS status. What are you doing?
VILÈS DORSAINVIL: It’s like a Catch-22 for me, because, me, as well, I’m a TPS holder. So, I’m just laying low and sit and observe what will happen to our community next.
AMY GOODMAN: Vilès Dorsainvil, we thank you so much for speaking up and out on Democracy Now!, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio.
Read more interviews here on Havana Times.
