More than 300,000 Haitian immigrants who’ve had permission to live and work in the U.S. but faced being returned to dangerous conditions have received a reprieve from deportation, after the Supreme Court kept in place lower court rulings that blocked the federal government from unjustly ending their temporary protections.
But while these families can continue to live and work here for now, protections could remain fleeting if the justices ultimately side with the administration despite lower courts ruling that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) not because conditions had improved in Haiti, but “because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants” and “racial animus,” as The Marshall Project noted last month.
The right thing to do would be to allow these families to continue to live and work here without fear, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s the smart thing to do. Just look at Springfield, Ohio, which had been steadily declining for years and then saw a sudden reversal thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit and grit of Haitian immigrants.
“For decades, Springfield had been another shrinking Midwestern town with an uncertain future. Manufacturing plants had shuttered, fueling an exodus,” as The New York Times noted in 2024. “The population dwindled to less than 60,000 by 2014, from more than 80,000 in 1960.” Then, Haitian immigrants looking for a fresh start arrived – and gave Springfield its own fresh start as well.
“New Caribbean restaurants and food trucks have opened across south Springfield where once abandoned neighborhoods are now bustling with residents,” The Guardian reported in 2024. Key among these Haitian entrepreneurs are women like TPS holder Ketlie Moise, who said she worked two jobs to save up enough to open her own Haitian Creole restaurant. She’s since been improving her community one delicious plate at a time. She dreams of one day expanding her restaurant, Kèkèt Bongou, to several locations and sharing fusion dishes with her customers.
“For my country — all Haitian know these dishes we make,” Moise said last year. “But only one different thing I make in this business is Italian food. I worked the Italian food restaurant for 15 years. I know how to make it. I make Linguini Alfredo with shrimp. I make spaghetti and meatballs.”
Other Haitian TPS holders who’ve helped revitalize this community include car manufacturing workers, food processing workers, delivery drivers and caregivers, and all together these neighbors have contributed $91 million to the city’s economy, according to research from FWD.us. Roughly 50 miles away in Columbus, TPS holders have contributed $44 million to the region.
Overall, Haitian TPS holders have contributed nearly $6 billion to the national economy, including more than $800 million in federal and payroll taxes, the organization said.
“By most accounts, the Haitians have helped revitalize Springfield,” as The NY Times noted. So it should come at no surprise that anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric targeting these Haitian neighbors aren’t just ugly, they’re just plain bad business that are threatening to claw back at the gains these once-blighted areas have seen in recent years. In 2024, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance made this community a target when he spread atrocious lies that he later admitted he made up for media attention. But the damage was already done, after Haitian community members faced racist harassment and even bomb threats.
Since then, Trump-Vance administration has steadily attacked protections for Haitian immigrants as part of its mass deportation agenda, further destabilizing the lives of these immigrant neighbors to the point that Moise said “she knows about 10 friends and neighbors who have recently left Springfield, along with several restaurant employees,” CBS News reported.
If attempts to end TPS are successful and program beneficiaries are forced to leave en masse, “we don’t just lose employees, we lose stability,” one employer told The Haitian Times. “Production slows, overtime costs go up and suddenly expansion plans don’t make sense anymore.” Another employer “told The Times how a mass exodus would set the community back. ‘If hundreds or thousands of people leave, that momentum doesn’t pause. It goes backwards,’” the employer said.
Moise fears what could happen if she’s forced to return to Haiti, where she says her previous business was bombed and her mother was shot. The same federal government attempting to end Moise’s protections has itself admitted that conditions are dangerous in Haiti: U.S. citizens are being urged to not travel to the small nation. No matter how the federal government tries to spin this discrepancy, if it’s unsafe for Americans, it’s unsafe for Moise.
“Faith is fueling Moise’s motivation to remain in Springfield and run her restaurant, while her business and her future hang in the balance,” CBS News reported. “We’re hoping that everything works out the way it’s supposed to work out,” she said. “God has a way of working everything out.”
She deserves stability. All of our immigrant neighbors deserve stability. “While the outcome for Haitian TPS holders — and many others with TPS — is yet to be determined, the facts remain,” American Immigration Council said. “Haitians with TPS have invested in their communities, planted roots, and enriched the cultural vibrancy of the country while also making crucial contributions to the workforce and economy.”
