COLUMBUS — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine criticized a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued Thursday allowing the federal government to end Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Haitian migrants, calling the underlying policy to remove them “a mistake.”
The high court’s 6-3 ruling in Mullin v. Doe cleared the way for the Trump administration to cancel or allow the expiration of the humanitarian program, which shields foreign nationals from deportation if their home countries are plagued by armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary crises.
DeWine, a Republican, emphasized that while the ruling settled the immediate legal question, the real-world economic and humanitarian fallout would heavily impact Ohio—particularly the city of Springfield, which has seen a large influx of Haitian arrivals in recent years.
“As a result of today’s ruling, the over 10,000 Haitians who have been living in Ohio (mostly in the Springfield area) legally through TPS will now be here illegally and will be subject to immediate deportation,” DeWine said in a statement.
“This also means that while these Haitians were working and contributing to our community and economy yesterday, today it is now illegal to employ them,” the governor said.
The governor pointed to the volatile conditions in Haiti, noting violent gangs control most of the country, the government is barely functional, and the economy remains in shambles.
He also highlighted existing federal advisories against traveling to the Caribbean nation, as well as a Federal Aviation Administration ban on U.S. commercial flights to Haiti due to the danger of gunfire from gangs.
“Changing the immigration status of these individuals is not in the best interest of the United States, nor Ohio,” DeWine said.
The Supreme Court’s decision reverses lower court rulings that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from terminating the protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants from Haiti and Syria.
(Below is a PDF with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Mullin vs. Doe issued Thursday.)