Overview:
Springfield, Ohio, has experienced economic growth fueled in part by Haitian immigrants. But as Temporary Protected Status for Haitians faces legal uncertainty, the potential loss of a significant portion of the workforce could threaten the city’s recovery and long-term stability.
This reporting by Lauren Caggiano for Hub Springfield was supported by a grant from The McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York and in collaboration with The Haitian Times.
SPRINGFIELD — As the county seat, Springfield has weathered decades of economic shifts, population changes and low morale. However, in the eyes and minds of its leaders, the city is charting a new course, one of resilience and reinvention.
Immigration has also been a key development in helping Springfield avoid the slow death so many Rust Belt cities have suffered. According to the American Immigration Council, a wave of Haitian immigrants first began arriving in Springfield in 2013 or 2014 to fill job vacancies. They stayed due to the low cost of living, a high number of jobs and the quality of life. This first cohort told their friends and family back in Haiti about Springfield, leading to another influx of Haitian workers. Today, as many as 15,000 Haitians reportedly live in the city, up to one-quarter of the population.
In a September 2024 address to the media, City Manager Bryan Heck was quick to defend the Haitian immigrants, following hateful and false rhetoric spewed online about them.
“It is disappointing that some of the narrative surrounding our city has been skewed by misinformation circulating on social media and further amplified by political rhetoric in the current highly charged presidential election cycle,” he said in the address. “Our Springfield community is making notable progress that contributes to its growing appeal among new residents, including immigrants. This development is underpinned by our city’s diverse and robust industrial base that encompasses the technology, automotive, food production and distribution sectors. The growth in our workforce population has supported the expansion of local businesses, contributing to the stabilization of our local economy.”
However, in contrast to Heck’s initial optimism then, Springfield’s economic activity might be stalled as the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that has allowed Haitian immigrants to live and work in the community remains in legal limbo.
On Feb. 12, Judge Ana Reyes denied the Trump Administration’s request to stay her Feb. 2 order that prevented the termination of Haiti’s TPS from taking effect the next day. In response, the administration has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to temporarily halt Reyes’ ruling. Written responses were due Feb. 19 and then the appeals court could weigh in. On March 16, the Supreme Court said it will hear arguments over the Trump administration’s push to end TPS for Haitians during its April argument session.
All of this means many Haitians in Clark County are functioning in a liminal space as they await word on next steps. Meanwhile, if local officials are worried about what losing one-quarter of the city’s population and workforce would do to its hard-fought revival, they certainly aren’t showing it.
Mike McDorman is president and CEO of the Greater Springfield Partnership. His organization oversees a range of initiatives, including economic development, workforce readiness, tourism and downtown revitalization.
He characterizes Springfield’s economic trajectory as a comeback story.
“This community is quietly rising up,” he says. “We’re resurging. The work we’ve done in downtown Springfield and across the county is going to be something we look back on as a turning point.”
The Springfield of today is the product of its economic struggles in the late 20th century, which mirrored those of many Midwestern cities. Manufacturing jobs disappeared and the population declined steadily for decades from its peak of 82,000 in 1960. Census data from 2000 showed a population of 65,000, before dipping again to 58,000 in 2024.
Facing a grim reality, McDorman says the community rallied around a shared vision for recovery.
“We set out to build the next industrial park — Prime Ohio II — because we knew we needed to attract jobs,” McDorman says. “It was a $9 million project and we had no money to build it. But we made it happen and it’s paid off. We brought in Gabe’s, a million-square-foot distribution center and other key employers like Topre and Sofidel.”
McDorman says Springfield has added 8,500 jobs over the last decade, which he considers a testament to the city’s focused economic development strategy.
When asked about the role Haitians have played in shaping the local workforce, McDorman seemed to indicate their impact was minimal. Of the more than 1,400 “bigger businesses” in the area, he claims only six have sizable immigrant populations in their workforce. He also denied having a strategy to attract and place Haitian workers. It was simply a case of word of mouth.
“From probably 2016 to present, we created about 8,000 jobs and I think that brought the opportunity for people to take advantage of those jobs,” he says. “Little did we know that there would be different groups of people taking advantage of (the growth).”
With an influx of as many as 15,000 Haitians, it stands to reason that this immigrant group would have a tangible impact on the city’s tax base, for one. According to reporting from the Springfield News-Sun, from 2021 to 2022, “the city saw an increase of more than $9.2 million in income tax revenue.” This period coincided with the Biden administration’s extension of TPS to more people, according to The Marshall Project.
According to a June 2022 news story from the Springfield News-Sun, the portion of income tax that makes up general fund revenues has continued to increase. In 2014, income tax accounted for 75.2% of general fund revenues. As cited in the same article, at the time, city officials expected income tax to make up 81.4% of those revenues in 2023.
For additional context, income tax collections had increased over the years, as captured in the June 22 article. The only exception was during 2020, when annual income tax revenues fell from $36.4 million in 2019 to $35.6 million in 2020, because of the COVID-19-related downturn but then increased to $39.9 million in 2021. Fast forward to November 2025, when the city released the preliminary 2026 budget. It was then that Heck alluded to “continued economic uncertainty—defined by declining income tax revenue.”
Speaking of economic uncertainty, both employers and business owners expressed concerns about potential disruption to operations if Haitian TPS holders are forced to leave. McDorman’s attitude of minimizing Haitians’ contributions is incongruent with the same sentiment captured in reporting by The Haitian Times.
“If that workforce goes away, we don’t just lose employees, we lose stability,” said one manufacturing company manager who employs about 50 Haitian workers. “Production slows, overtime costs go up and suddenly expansion plans don’t make sense anymore.”
One business owner told The Times how a mass exodus would set the community back.
“If hundreds or thousands of people leave, that momentum doesn’t pause. It goes backwards.”
While the collective number of TPS holders in Springfield remains unclear, the data suggest an upward trend coinciding with Haitians’ migration there. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Springfield in January 2020 was 6.1%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It subsequently fell to 3.9% in December 2023. This aligns with the biggest surge of Haitian immigrants, which occurred between 2021 and 2023. While there doesn’t appear to be reliable data specific to Springfield, the Haitian Bridge Alliance tells us that Haitians have an outsized presence in the healthcare, construction, caregiving and service industries.
Springfield’s gross domestic product (GDP), another marker of the economy’s health, was $4.7 million in 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis via FRED. By 2023, that number had shot up to $5.9 million.
This is where the clarity ends, however. Outside of conversations with McDorman, several attempts were made to obtain city or county-level data on the Haitian population’s economic impact, workforce or educational participation and community contributions. It was met with a lack of response, hesitancy, or outright avoidance. In asking the Springfield-Clark Career Technology Center about population-specific enrollment data, for example, The Hub was told this information isn’t available to the public.
The Trump Administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigration — and ongoing fears that the rights of many Haitians living and working in Springfield could soon be revoked — seems to have had a chilling effect. Springfield City School District also declined a request for similar data, noting they plan to “ensure full legal compliance” with federal authorities. When asking today how Haitians have changed the fabric of the community, it seemed Heck had changed his tune, declining to comment “on this matter” altogether.
Yet, the question remains: What happens if Haitian TPS holders in Springfield are told they have to leave the country?
Reanne Frank, a social demographer and professor at The Ohio State University, speaks broadly about the critical role immigrants play in communities like Springfield.
“From an economic, demographic and sociological standpoint, this is an open-and-shut case. This is a positive. It’s a net gain.”
Frank highlights that immigrants, particularly those in working-age groups, contribute not only as laborers but also as family builders. This activity bolsters population growth and economic vitality. In her estimation, Springfield’s Haitian community has been instrumental in revitalizing the local economy and they were recruited by local industry.
“Local businesses needed working-age individuals for some of the most difficult, least desirable jobs in the country,” she says.
However, as Frank explains, Haitian TPS holders who came to Springfield for jobs might have left a violent and volatile situation back home. But in exchange for temporary employment, they’ve been navigating a gray area in the United States.
“TPS is a liminal legal status,” she says, “always in this in-betweenness of being undocumented and being a legal permanent resident.”
The current political climate has exacerbated this vulnerability, with the threat of detention looming large.
“It’s infinitely more vulnerable this time around,” Frank adds, comparing the situation to past instances of TPS being terminated for other immigrant groups.
The potential loss of TPS for Springfield’s Haitian community could have catastrophic effects, not just for the individuals directly impacted but for the city as a whole. Frank points out that Springfield, like many aging and slow-growth communities in the United States, relies on immigration to sustain its population and economy.
“Immigration is a very logical and natural tool to deal with population decline and aging,” she says. “It makes no sense that we’re in this nativist, anti-immigrant moment.”
Springfield’s story is a microcosm of a larger national debate, one that pits fear and often misinformation against reason and evidence. As Frank puts it, “We have historical, demographic and sociological evidence. It’s all there.”