Michaelle Louis is a former domestic violence specialist who came to Springfield, Ohio, from Haiti. This fall she walked more than 40 miles toward the Ohio statehouse in Columbus, with dozens of other Haitians and their neighbors, because federal agents have been putting ankle monitors on people like her.
The marchers want four things: an end to the ankle monitors, ICE out of Springfield, detained Haitians returned to their families, and protected status restored permanently. Haitians are Black immigrants, and Springfield is home to an estimated 12,000 of them. Their Temporary Protected Status, which let them live and work in the United States legally, was ended after the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration this year.
Since the end of the protection, Haitians in Springfield have been summoned to ICE’s Cincinnati-area field office. Advocates say about 50 had appointments on July 31, and that some were pressed to take $2,600 to leave the country or wear a monitor. Many left wearing one. Ankle monitors are usually used on people with a criminal record, a deportation order or a missed court date. Advocates and lawyers say the Haitians had none of those.
“Like they just see every immigrant as a case, as a number, without dignity,” Louis told Spectrum News.
The pastor leading part of the walk said the community objects to the devices for a plain reason: “We don’t agree with the chains on our feet, ankle monitors, because we are not criminals.”
Viles Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Support Center, said the shame follows people home. “They’re very much ashamed of the ankle monitors. When they get home with them, they’re ashamed to show that to their kids because they’re not criminals,” he told MS NOW.
Troy Jackson, executive director of Undivided Springfield, said the people being tracked came to the city on the government’s own terms. “The Haitian community was invited here with temporary protected status. They came here legally,” he said.
Lawyers are asking what authority ICE is using. Rebecca Bundy, a supervising attorney at the legal aid group ABLE, said: “We’re actually not sure yet how the immigration enforcement…are claiming to have the authority to impose these restrictions.”
Springfield’s Haitian residents have been under national attention before, when false claims about them spread during the 2024 campaign. Now it is federal enforcement, not rumor, that is changing their daily lives.
ICE did not respond to Spectrum News’s request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security has said previously that it “conducts law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe.”
The march was timed to put the demands in front of state officials in Columbus, days before Ohio votes on Tuesday.
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