Springfield Revisited: How Immigration Policy Split a Community

The small Ohio town of Springfield has become a symbol of modern America in this closely fought midterm campaign. What it symbolises depends entirely on who is describing it. Donald Trump presents it as proof of the damage wrought by unchecked immigration, once echoing a false claim that Haitian arrivals were eating pets; now he says his deportation drive means its people are getting their town back. Others see a familiar American cycle of industrial decline, cheap housing and low-paid migrant labour.

Pierre Damas Bel, aged 20, came to Springfield in 2024 to join his father and stepmother. He had fled Haiti, gripped by political instability and gang warfare, and entered the United States with permission under a Biden-era programme for migrants waiting in Mexico. A family friend said he then received Temporary Protected Status, which grants vetted individuals the right to live and work in the country. TPS usually lasts 18 months but is routinely renewed for years while danger persists in the affected country.

Bel aspired to build a life. He was an honours student, a talented athlete and a cadet in a high school programme preparing students for officer commissions in the US Armed Forces. In June, however, the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration's decision to end TPS for some 350,000 Haitians. Bel was ordered to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, where he was fitted with an ankle monitor used to track migrants facing deportation. On Instagram he wrote of shame and humiliation at wearing the tag. On 31 August he parked on the side of a highway near Springfield, walked into oncoming traffic and was killed. His family blamed his death on his distress at the monitor.

The Department of Homeland Security did not answer the BBC's questions about the case. ICE has previously rejected any attempt to blame it for the death, telling US media that remaining illegally while fighting removal is a choice, as is leaving with a free flight home and $2,600. In the weeks before his death, Bel attended a Springfield support centre for Haitians facing deportation. Its co-founder, Viles Dorsainvil, said Bel had been filing a motion asking ICE to remove the tag. He went twice to the facilities, Dorsainvil recalled, begging them to take it off. He did everything right to be here until they put the tag on him.

More than a million immigrants from 13 countries have had TPS terminated under the administration, many passing overnight from legal to unauthorised status. Trump made border security and mass deportation central pledges in 2024. Polls suggest the border policy retains strong Republican support, though backing for the nature of enforcement has slipped this year. Ohio has become a swing state in the coming congressional elections, with one of two Republican-held Senate seats in play. Trump has visited twice to rally turnout and counter falling approval ratings. At a rally in Youngstown this month he returned to Springfield, telling cheering supporters that about 35,000 Haitians had been dropped on a beautiful little town and were almost gone. We're giving their town back, he said.

The administration announced in June 2025 that it would remove TPS for Haitians, and the ensuing legal battle reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in its favour in the summer. James Percival, general counsel at Homeland Security, said the T in TPS stands for temporary, yet many designations had become de facto amnesty. This was a win for the rule of law and common sense, he argued. In August the department posted a video of Haitians in chains and white uniforms being led onto a deportation flight, set to jaunty music, telling those whose TPS had expired to leave immediately. The administration insists it is conducting law enforcement operations to keep Americans safe and that Haiti is safe enough to return to. The State Department's highest Level 4 do-not-travel warning remains in force for the country.

Decades of economic decline remain visible in Springfield, through shuttered factories and boarded-up homes. This part of the Midwest was hit hard by deindustrialisation, as those laid off from once prolific factories sought work on the coasts or in warmer southern states. Within the past five years an estimated 20,000 Haitians arrived, many fleeing the devastating 2010 earthquake, others the violence that followed President Jovenel Moise's assassination in 2021. The town's population rose rapidly, and with legal status under TPS many took low-paid jobs in factories and distribution warehouses.

Rick Johnson, a former Marine whose porch flies the Stars and Stripes alongside Navy and Marine Corps banners, has lived in Springfield all his life and strongly supports ICE's deportation drive. You get where we're coming from, he said. We love America, we love Americans, any kind of Americans, but you kind of have to be American. He moved into his neighbourhood a decade ago, but said the loss of industry has left much of it empty. They've torn down every house around me, he said. The only neighbours I have are Haitians right here, and they don't really bother me. They arrived around four years ago, he added, but there's a lot of them. He mentioned the driving problems, a perception shared by other residents that traffic accidents increased after the Haitian community came. In 2023 an 11-year-old boy, Aiden Clark, was killed when his school bus overturned in a crash with a minivan. The driver, Herman Joseph, originally from Haiti, lacked a valid US licence and was jailed. Aiden's father, Nathan, later denounced politicians for using his son's death as a political tool to fuel anti-immigrant sentiment, saying the boy was accidentally killed.

Johnson's concern is the numbers and the pace of change. Really it's the amount of them, he told the BBC. If you come here you should come here legally. Temporary Protected Status is done. It's time to go. At a nearby grocery store run by Paschur Castelly, who left Haiti 20 years ago, most shelves stand empty save for religious candles and framed pictures of Catholic saints cherished by this devout community. I can't purchase new merchandise because I don't have people coming in, he said. Our communities, we have doctors, we have engineers. We came here to get a better life, to help our family in Haiti. Our country doesn't offer us security. After 20 minutes, the first customer arrived, a warehouse worker of three years who asked to remain anonymous. Like others who have lost TPS, he has probably also lost the right to work. As he chatted with Castelly, he pulled up his right trouser leg to reveal a large ankle monitor. ICE describes such devices as part of its Alternatives to Detention programme. I was given a choice, he said, wear the ankle monitor and report in every two weeks, or sign my deportation order. As we left, Castelly locked the door behind us. A neighbour, fearing an ICE raid, shouted across to ask whether he was all right. Years after Trump thrust Springfield into the national spotlight, and weeks before voters shape the remainder of his presidency, the town remains a symbol of two versions of America.