COLUMBUS, Ohio — Denise Williams has lived in Springfield most of her life. But lately, the president of the local NAACP doesn’t leave the house without proof of citizenship.
“It’s a shame,” Williams said. “I’ve been here 71 years, and I’ve got to carry some ID just to go to the store because I’m in fear they could stop me.”
That fear is rooted in a pending federal court decision in Washington, D.C., where a judge is weighing whether the Trump administration legally ended Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitians. This program allows people from countries facing dangerous conditions to live and work legally in the United States.
If TPS expires on Feb. 3, more than 300,000 Haitians nationwide would immediately lose their legal status and work authorization. About 15,000 live in Springfield, with another 30,000 across Central Ohio.
Williams said the images coming out of Minneapolis—where two Americans have died during a large federal immigration operation—now sit in the back of her mind as she plans even routine errands.
Even Gov. Mike DeWine has said he worries Springfield could become the new Minneapolis.
Williams was born in Dayton, but she fears federal agents might stop anyone who looks potentially Haitian—or, as she put it, “any brown or Black person.”
“I’m telling my daughter to keep my grandsons out of school until it’s over,” Williams said.
Waiting on the courts
When it will be over depends on a ruling from one federal judge.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes is expected to rule before Feb. 3 on whether the Trump administration unlawfully ended TPS.
The plaintiffs in Miot v. Trump et al. argue that the Trump administration unlawfully ended TPS because of a prejudice against non-white immigrants, and forcing people to return would carry “grave, quite possibly fatal” consequences.
The main plaintiff, Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, said in court filings that returning to Haiti after living in the United States would make him stand out—and put him in danger.
He would be “a prime target” for kidnapping because the gangs who rule Haiti would assume he has money.
Miot and the other plaintiffs have asked Judge Reyes for an injunction that would let Haitians keep their legal status while the case continues.
“She is likely to find that the termination was unlawful, and she is likely to block it,” said Emily Brown, a law professor who runs Ohio State University’s immigration clinic.
Brown said that’s her educated guess, based on how the judge questioned the government during oral arguments.
Government lawyers have argued Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has broad authority to decide what qualifies as the national interest.
Bloomberg News reported that Reyes pushed back on that claim, asking whether TPS could be ended for something as arbitrary as Noem “not liking vanilla ice cream.”
Even so, Brown cautioned that an injunction would probably be short-lived.
In a similar case involving Venezuelans, Noem v. National TPS Alliance, a lower court blocked the termination of TPS, only for the U.S. Supreme Court to later lift that order while the case continued.
“One day out of the blue, the Supreme Court makes its decision, and starting that day, they don’t have TPS anymore,” Brown said. “It’s extremely destabilizing for people who have been becoming part of the formal economy in the US.”
Brown said her clinic works with Venezuelans and Haitians to see whether they qualify for other forms of relief, such as asylum.
But unlike TPS, asylum does not protect people from detention while their cases are reviewed.
A city in limbo
Over the past five years, between 12,000 and 15,000 Haitians moved to Springfield, drawn by warehouse and manufacturing jobs in a city that had been shrinking.
The rapid growth strained schools, health care, and housing, but it also helped fill jobs and stabilize neighborhoods.
“Springfield has been making a comeback economically, and that comeback has been helped, I wouldn’t say totally caused by the Haitians, but it’s been helped by Haitians who are working,” DeWine said.
Tensions began to simmer in August 2023, when an 11-year-old boy from Clark County died in a school bus crash caused by a Haitian immigrant without a valid driver’s license.
In 2024, that tension boiled after President Donald Trump falsely claimed Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets.
In 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would not renew TPS for Haitians.
Now, the community is waiting for what happens on Feb. 4.
DeWine expects to get 24 to 48 hours’ notice before ICE enters Ohio.
“But I want to be very, very clear, I am not predicting that ICE will do something,” he said. “I don’t know what ICE will do.”
If federal agents descend upon Springfield, Mayor Rob Rue wants them to follow local policing practices.
“We would ask that they would not cover their faces so they could be identified as federal agents,” Rue said during Wednesday’s City Commission meeting.
Springfield police policies also require officers at protests or demonstrations to wear visible badges and nameplates, and show their ID when asked.
Rue said the city is urging (but not requiring) federal agents to follow similar standards “to protect public safety and promote accountability.”
City Councilman Larry Rickett said those concerns are heightened by how easy it is to buy camouflage and fake identification online.
“I’m requesting that no one from the outside come into Springfield thinking they can help,” Williams said. “We need help, but not from the outside. We need help from the administration, from the courts.”
What happens if TPS ends?
Haitian community leaders say the end of TPS would upend lives that have been built over many years.
Speaking at the Columbus Metropolitan Club in January, Sophia Pierrelus, a regional director for the Haitian Diaspora Political Action Committee, said returning to Haiti is not a realistic option.
Gangs control large parts of the country and use both kidnappings and sexual violence to terrorize residents.
“When you give them the ransom, they still kill you,” she said.
DeWine has seen Haiti’s instability firsthand. He built a school there and named it after his daughter, Beck DeWine, who died in a car crash. The school closed in 2024 because of escalating violence.
“The situation in Haiti is as dire as I have ever seen it,” DeWine said. The gangs are controlling a good part of the country. It’s extremely violent. The economy is in shambles. The government does not function, at least virtually worthless.”
Other Republican leaders see it differently. U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno told the Statehouse News Bureau that TPS isn’t meant to last forever.
“It was always temporary,” Moreno said. “Everybody always knew the date, so we shouldn’t have to surge a force in there, to forcibly deport people who knew for a long time that they have to do that on their own.”
Leaving the U.S. isn’t as simple as packing a suitcase. Clark County’s population hovers around 135,000, meaning Haitians represent about 11% of its residents.
“We could see the whole housing market get destabilized in Springfield,” Brown said. “There are just so many ripple effects that could play out.”
The situation is even more complicated for families with American-born children.
Parents with infants and toddlers tend to take them, Brown said. Her clients with teenagers are more likely to leave them with relatives.
“These are just really hard choices,” Brown said.
