This will take away the legal status from thousands of people, turning them into immigrants living here illegally.
Many Springfield residents at the city commission meeting lauded the Trump administration’s decision, saying that Temporary Protected Status was always supposed to be just that: temporary.
“What part of Temporary Protected Status did you not understand? Obviously the temporary part,” said Diana Daniels of Springfield Twp. “As for a path to citizenship, one exists. Very simple: it’s a naturalization process, not a magic wand.”
One woman said that the city is “still in a bad predicament” with Haitian immigrants. She said she was in a car crash with a Haitian immigrant “a while back,” and her cousin experienced the same in February.
“You can try to convince the people of this community, this state, this country, that the presence of all these immigrants have benefitted the American people, but the facts don’t bear out this opinion,” she said. “Legal immigrants have ‘til August and illegal immigrants should get out now. If our governor, city officials or sympathizing citizens aid or abet these people in any way over our American citizens and this federal mandate, the silent majority like my cousin won’t be silent anymore.”
Multiple area residents said they believed Haitian immigrants had been subject to “indentured servitude.” One woman said that she didn’t understand how the city had “turned into such a poverty-stricken area” with high rent prices and jobs not paying enough.
“That’s why we can bring in others; we can pay them cheaper and give them government assistance. That’s called indentured servants,” she said. “Indentured servants coming to help themselves hoping that these people will help them get a better life.”
Another woman, Amanda Richardson, delivered a satirical speech, claiming that she didn’t understand why the city wouldn’t illegally take away people’s driver’s licenses or deport people.
“My taxes help pay for your ridiculously small salaries, so why won’t you just do any dumb thing I demand?” Richardson said.
Jeffrey Allen said his family has been in the city a long time, and he raised concerns about the rhetoric surrounding Haitian immigrants.
“These threats, these innuendos, these things that are going to happen in the future — really? Is that what you want?" Allen said. “Who wants that? Raise your hand. Do you really want it? Because you’re headed towards it.”
Others raised concerns about large numbers of Haitian immigrants living in a home on Kenton Street unfit for residency.
Bryan Heck said that the city investigated the complaint on that house and multiple departments sent violations. He said the city brought in the Clark County Combined Health District “once we realized we weren’t getting any movement.”
“This is owned by a private property owner actually out of state and so we were able to finally gain entry — because we can’t just go into a property without either being invited in or getting a warrant to be able to do that — and able to further gather evidence of overcrowding and specifically unsafe living conditions ... that led to the condemning of the property and the notice that they had to be able to leave,” Heck said.