The Biden administration — in which Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris is vice president — extended TPS as recently as June, allowing about 300,000 Haitians already legally in the U.S. to stay. The efficiency of approving “parole” applications, which allow people to stay in the U.S. while applying for a longer-term immigration status, also improved under the Biden-Harris administration.
Trump running mate U.S. Sen. JD Vance has criticized the actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration.
“The media loves to say that the Haitian migrants ... are here legally. And what they mean is that Kamala Harris used two separate programs, mass parole and Temporary Protected Status, she used two programs to wave a wand and to say ‘We’re not going to deport those people here,’” said Vance at a recent campaign stop.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
“Well, if Kamala Harris waves a wand illegally, and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them an illegal alien. An illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. That is not how this works,” Vance said.
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an immigration professor at the Ohio State University’s College of Law, told this news outlet that Vance’s argument doesn’t hold water.
“Legally, the power that the Biden Administration is wielding is something that presidential administrations have tapped over and over and over again as a means of trying to regulate migration so that it’s safer, so that it’s more efficient, and frankly so that the federal government has a better sense of who’s coming and where they’re going,” García Hernández said.
In a statement to this news outlet, the office of Springfield’s congressman U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, claimed the Biden administration strayed from the law when it created the Cuban Haitian Nicaraguan Venezuelan (CHNV) parole program, which allows vetted citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to bypass the southern border and enter the country through other legal ports of entry, such as airports.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
A spokesperson for Turner directly tied the CHNV, which Turner and his office refer to simply as the “Haitian Parole Program,” to Springfield’s immigration influx, arguing that the program “has been abused by the Biden-Harris administration to send more than 15,000 Haitian migrants to Springfield, Ohio.”
CHNV is seldomly used by Haitian immigrants in Springfield, according to attorneys with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE), a pro-bono legal firm which has helped over 400 Haitians in Springfield, and Dayton immigration attorney Mohamed Al-Hamdani, whose Haitian clientele has skyrocketed.
When this news outlet asked Turner’s office for data specifically tying the CHNV program to Springfield’s Haitian influx, a spokesperson responded: “To date, we have relied on information that we have received from the city of Springfield and Clark County” and relayed that the CHNV “has been the one most consistently and specifically named.”
Turner’s spokesperson also noted that the congressman had contacted the Biden administration to get data on the various parole programs and the number of Haitians living in Springfield but never heard back.
Turner is not alone in his contention that the CHNV parole program is illegal, though the courts have so far thrown out the claim. In March, the program survived a legal challenge from Texas, backed by Ohio and various other states, after a Republican federal judge ruled that the plaintiffs had no legal standing, as reported by the Miami Herald.
“At the end of the day, the Supreme Court gets the last word and so far there is no definitive decision from the Supreme Court about any of these parole initiatives,” García Hernández said. “So, can you call something illegal (without that decision)? You can certainly say that you think it’s illegal.”
When asked for her thoughts on the influx, Amy Cox, a Democrat running to unseat Turner in Ohio’s 10th Congressional District, told this news outlet that she would support further federal assistance for Springfield, including grants to hire more teachers to maintain a healthy teacher to student ratio and additional facilities to avoid overcrowded classrooms.
Lack of federal support
Outside the question of legality, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Democratic U.S. Sen Sherrod Brown have levied nearly identical criticisms against the Biden administration for a lack of foresight.
DeWine says it’s incumbent upon the Biden administration to provide funding to communities like Springfield that, through little volition of their own, have taken on a significant and quick population influx that has strained public resources.
“There’s nothing wrong with us being welcoming, but I think the federal government has an obligation (to help). If you look at the people of Springfield, they had nothing to do with this decision, no one in Ohio had anything to do with it,” DeWine said in a recent Fox News interview.
“Senator Brown believes that the administration should have had a plan in place to support communities like Springfield who experience a population increase from Haitian immigrants,” Kevin Donahoe, communications director for Brown, told this news outlet. “The administration’s lack of planning is one of the reasons there are serious concerns from community members about the strain on public infrastructure.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
In a statement on behalf of Bernie Moreno, a Trump-backed Republican looking to take Brown’s U.S. Senate seat this November, Moreno’s campaign focused on the role TPS played in the city’s influx.
“Temporary Protected Status was intended to be just that — temporary. Instead, Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown extended the program and allowed thousands of unvetted migrants to resettle in Springfield with no end date,” wrote Reagan McCarthy, communications director for Moreno’s Senate campaign.
The Haitians granted TPS have been vetted at various points, including the point they were legally allowed into the country and when they applied for TPS. All Haitians on TPS will see their status expire on Feb. 3, 2026 and will have to reapply. And, it was the Department of Homeland Security’s then-Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, not the vice president nor the Democrats in the Senate, that made the decision to extend the program for Haitians.
Nearly all Ohio politicians who have spoken out about Springfield’s Haitian influx have argued that the White House should do more to assist the city.
The Biden administration has argued that it made $1.3 billion available to communities like Springfield and attempted to make another $1.4 billion available, but was stopped short when a bipartisan border was tanked by Republicans, including Vance, at the behest of Trump.
“Without immediate federal assistance, Springfield risks further overwhelming its local infrastructure and jeopardizing the well-being of both its residents and the migrant community,” a statement from Ohio House Rep. Bernie Willis, R-Springfield, reads. “It’s time for the Biden-Harris administration to step up and provide the necessary support to ensure the community can continue to thrive while addressing this unprecedented challenge.”
Derek Alvarado, a Democrat running against Willis in House District 74 this November, did not respond to a request for comment.
For more stories like this, sign up for our Ohio Politics newsletter. It’s free, curated, and delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday evening.
Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, on X, via email, or you can drop him a comment/tip with the survey below.
About the Author
