SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is warning that Springfield-area employers will face severe workforce challenges following the expiration of legal status for untold thousands of Haitians on Feb. 3.
“As I talk to employers, I know what’s going to happen on that Feb. 3 day,” DeWine said. “That is employers tell me on that date many of these — maybe most — of the Haitians who are working there will no longer be legal. Once they go from legal, which they are now, to not being legal, they cannot employ them.
“Then you’re going to have a lot of unfilled jobs. You’re going to have, whatever the consequences are of 10,000 — or who knows how many, no one knows really — people who are no longer being able to be employed.”
DeWine was responding to questions from the Dayton Daily News during a holiday breakfast with reporters.
The Trump administration terminated the Temporary Protected Status that has allowed thousands of Haitians to legally live and work in Ohio for years, effective Feb. 3. It’s unknown exactly how many people will be affected.
Estimates of how many Haitians live in the Springfield area range from 10,000 to 15,000. Many are on TPS, but for many others with pending asylum claims or other statuses, it’s unclear what will happen as Trump earlier this month suspended immigration proceedings for people from Haiti and certain other countries.
Some have already lost work permits, such as Haitians who came into the country under the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan humanitarian parole program.
Vilès Dorsainvil, president of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center, warned in a September interview of a “humanitarian crisis.”
“So many folks are not working, so many folks have been laid off; it’s a very difficult situation for them now,” Dorsainvil said. “They can’t pay their rent. They can’t pay their utility bills. They can’t put food on the table.”
DeWine said the state has received no indication from federal agencies whether any large enforcement push will accompany the expiration of TPS.
“I can’t speak for ICE, so I don’t know,” he said.
DeWine noted the state has put measures in place to help with the rapid growth of Springfield’s Haitian population in recent years — such as health clinics, driving schools and language classes — and he hears from local business leaders the Haitians are needed.
“When you talk to business men and women who are employing them … what they tell me has not changed. It continues to be, ‘We need them to work,’” DeWine said. “They are reliable. Yes, there are language challenges. Yes, there are cultural challenges. But they show up, they work, they want overtime, they’re reliable, and they pass drug tests.
“Many of them are raising families. Some of them have children who are citizens. So yeah, this is not a good situation."
