Federal immigration authorities are preparing a major enforcement operation targeting Haitian migrants whose Temporary Protected Status has expired following a Supreme Court ruling. More than 300,000 Haitian nationals lost those protections, placing them at risk of arrest and deportation if they haven’t obtained another legal status. Federal sources identified Ohio, particularly Springfield, as a major target for the expanded ICE operation.
Former acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf discussed the coming enforcement push during a July 27th appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” Host Bill Hemmer said ICE was preparing to “dramatically ramp up operations” after the Supreme Court reversed lower-court decisions that had blocked the Trump administration from terminating Haiti’s TPS designation. The protection had allowed qualifying Haitian nationals to remain and work legally in the United States.
Hemmer displayed Customs and Border Protection figures showing nearly 500,000 nationwide encounters with Haitian nationals during the Biden administration. That figure is separate from the more than 300,000 Haitians who held TPS when the administration moved to terminate the designation. Hemmer drew viewers’ attention to the border numbers before asking Wolf what would happen next.
Multiple federal sources told Fox News that ICE intended to begin expanded enforcement as early as the week of July 27th. As Fox News reported, Ohio was expected to be heavily targeted because of Springfield’s large Haitian population, and ICE leadership had already been notified of the operational plans. TPS was initially granted to Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake.
“Haiti had had TPS since 2010, so going on almost 16 years, where each administration just kept extending and extending it,” Wolf told Hemmer. “I think the Trump administration, as they have across about nine or 10 different countries, have said that Temporary Protected Status is just that—it’s temporary.” He said migrants who failed to secure another legal status would be required to leave the country.
Wolf explained ICE’s role once those protections disappear. “The idea is that these individuals, if they don’t adjust status, will need to leave the country, and ICE is there to enforce that order of removal,” he said. Hemmer then asked whether the attention on Haitians marked the first stage of a broader operation involving migrants from other countries whose temporary protections had also been terminated.
Watch Wolf explain the impending enforcement operation here:
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“I don’t think it’s just going to be on the Haitians,” Wolf responded. “I think it’s going to be on all of those individuals.” He said migrants from the “eight or nine different countries” affected by the administration’s TPS terminations would become targets for removal if they lacked another lawful basis to remain in the United States.
Wolf said Haitians would likely constitute the largest individual group affected by the new enforcement effort. He also pointed to the Biden administration’s use of humanitarian parole and other immigration programs that admitted additional Haitian nationals outside the TPS population. “The Biden administration not only extended TPS, but then allowed a lot of these Haitians to come in on parole and other types of status,” he said.
The former DHS official said the Trump administration had terminated those programs as part of its effort to restore the original limits of federal immigration law. Although the first reported operation concentrated heavily on Haitian nationals and Ohio, Wolf predicted that ICE would pursue other groups whose temporary protections had ended. “The focus, I don’t believe, from ICE will just be on Haitians,” he concluded. “But there’ll be other groups as well.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.