Ohio's Republican Governor Says Haitians 'Played a Major Role' in Springfield's 'Economic Comeback'
Gov. Mike DeWine's recent essay in The New York Times makes the case for a more open legal immigration policy.
Billy Binion
Updated Fri, August 14, 2026
A Haitian national in Ohio collapses after being fitted with an ankle monitor | Freedomnews.TV/@ScooterCasterNY/X
Key takeaway
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine advocates for a more open legal immigration policy, citing the need for immigrants to fill workforce gaps and drive the economy.
"It's time for Mr. Trump's Nixon-goes-to-China moment," Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, wrote this week in The New York Times. For President Richard Nixon, that meant strategically establishing diplomatic relations with China, even as a crusader against communism. President Donald Trump's moment, DeWine says, would be pursuing a more open legal immigration policy, even as he has crusaded against illegal migration.
The essay outlines Trump's work to stem the latter, and says the president oversaw a "remarkable turnaround." This lends him a unique sort of credibility, according to DeWine, to champion pragmatic policy that is good for the country—from incentivizing high-skilled immigration to allowing Haitian nationals to stay—despite the currency the topic has as a lightning-rod culture war issue.
"As Ohio's governor, I understand the need for a sensible immigration policy," he wrote. "In our state, very simply, we need people."
A big reason for this: The birthrate is falling and has been for almost 20 years. While it may be tempting to push Americans to have more babies, the policies meant to increase fertility rates are highly ineffective. "Pro-natalist policies have a weak track record in every country where they've been tried," Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote in the June 2023 issue of Reason. "Countries from Russia to Japan to Italy have tried an array of measures—from pressure campaigns to subsidized child care to giving people days off work for making babies—to raise national birthrates. Yet fertility rates remain stable or continue to fall."
DeWine is a realist here. "The Congressional Budget Office projects that starting in 2030, deaths will outpace births and all of our population growth will come from net immigration," he wrote in the Times. This is a practical problem. "Immigrants help fill work force gaps. Foreign-born workers represent nearly 30 percent of our country's long-term direct-care work force. They provide one-third of the workers who allow older Americans to remain in their homes." They are also filling specialized roles: "As of 2023, 22 percent of Ohio's physicians, 12 percent of our STEM workers and 8 percent of our entrepreneurs were foreign-born. Looking to the future, where advanced manufacturing, aerospace and health care will drive our economy, we need both native-born workers and immigrants."
Trump campaigned heavily on fighting illegal immigration. But his administration has also devoted quite a bit of energy to suppressing legal migration—by heavily reducing, for example, our international student population—despite that immigrants are not the only ones who lose from that. "Discouraging just one-third of international STEM graduates could leave the American economy 0.7 percent to 1.3 percent smaller, or roughly $200 billion to $400 billion in GDP over a decade," wrote Reason contributing editor Veronique de Rugy, "equivalent to losing the entire economy of Utah or South Carolina."
DeWine also touches on a group that has been the target of quite a bit of derision: the Haitian nationals who have come to Ohio. Many received temporary protected status due to the severe instability in that country, which is largely run by armed gangs.
A video of one such Haitian in DeWine's state recently went viral, as he collapsed to the ground after the government fitted him with an ankle monitor. "In Springfield, Ohio, Haitian nationals have played a major role in the city's economic comeback," DeWine wrote. "They've filled jobs, repaired homes, paid taxes, started businesses and supported their families. But the administration has ended their Temporary Protected Status, a move I have vocally opposed."
That is not the story that has saturated the conversation. The Haitians who have come to the U.S. have been the subject of feverish culture warring, the implication being that they are sucking America dry. Yet DeWine's message is illustrative of the fact that such relationships are not one-sided.
The post Ohio's Republican Governor Says Haitians 'Played a Major Role' in Springfield's 'Economic Comeback' appeared first on Reason.com.
The life-altering choices immigrant families are making under Trump’s crackdown
Maria Santana, CNN
Sat, August 15, 2026
Pregnant asylum-seeker Yaoska, 32, comforts her two-year-old son who was not feeling well, inside the Miami-area motel room where she and her children are living after her husband was deported to Nicaragua, on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. - Rebecca Blackwell/APMore
A quiet upheaval is unfolding in homes, schools, churches and workplaces across the United States, as families try to prepare for –– or avoid –– an encounter with immigration authorities.
Some have left the United States after decades of building lives here. Others have considered giving up their unborn child for adoption, so the baby could have a better future.
Parents are naming guardians for their children in case they are detained or deported, while others have stopped working, shopping or even leaving home, relying instead on neighbors and churches.
The choices are deeply personal. Some are irreversible.
"I thought about giving my baby up"
Emma Confesor was pregnant with her fourth child when a question she had never imagined began keeping her awake: Would her baby have a better future raised by someone else?
Confesor, 39, emigrated from Puebla, Mexico, more than two decades ago. But uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship led her to consider placing her unborn child up for adoption.
"It didn't seem fair to me that the baby wouldn't have citizenship," Confesor said through tears. "I had considered adoption so the baby could have a better future."
For weeks, the possibility consumed her. She said she struggled to sleep, afraid her child could be denied the future she believed every baby born in the United States should have.
Confesor was not alone.
In an ACLU lawsuit challenging Trump's executive order, another pregnant woman said she became so desperate to ensure her son would be born a US citizen that she asked her doctor whether labor could be induced early so he would arrive before the policy could take effect. Her doctor advised against it.
Then came the decision that changed everything.
On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, rejecting the administration's effort to end automatic citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to many noncitizen parents.
For Confesor, the fear that had dominated her pregnancy began to lift.
"I feel relieved," she said. "I kept thinking, 'It's not fair.' I wasn't sleeping well because I was worried this could affect me. Not just me, but so many mothers who are going to have babies here."
Planning for separation
While Confesor feared for her baby's future, other parents were preparing for the possibility that they would not be there to raise their children who were born US citizens.
In Maryland, a Salvadoran mother signed legal papers naming Father Vidal Rivas, the priest at her local church, as temporary guardian of her 7-year-old son if she and her husband were deported.
"It's not easy to sign a document where it feels like you're handing your child over to someone else," she told CNN affiliate Univision through tears.
The uncertainty, she said, had taken a toll.
"I keep thinking and thinking… I feel like my health has suffered because you just don't know," she said. "Honestly, I've stayed in my house, just praying that God's will be done."
She is part of a growing number of immigrant parents making contingency plans in case they are detained or deported.
Undocumented immigrant Andrea, 28, cries while standing with her children inside the Ecuadorian Consulate after learning the emergency passport application for her daughter Jazlyn, 6, would be delayed pending further documentation in Queens, New York on October 8, 2025. - John Moore/Getty ImagesMore
Many families have already been forced into separation. A CNN investigation published last September found more than 100 US citizen children, from newborns to teenagers, had been left without their parents after immigration enforcement actions. Some were taken in by relatives, neighbors or family friends. Others entered foster care.
At St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Hyattsville, Maryland, Rivas has been appointed standby legal guardian for at least 31 children whose parents fear they could be detained or deported
"Many of these parents have no other relatives in the country," Rivas said. "Some want their children to stay here. I would become legally responsible for them so they can continue going to school and have what they need. Other parents hope their children can finish high school before they are sent to reunite with them."
Rivas said he will serve as a guardian for as long as families need him. "It's truly as if they were your own children," he said.
Leaving home before being forced to
For others, departure has become the only choice that still feels like their own.
Abdiel and Adilene DomÃnguez had built nearly their entire lives in Minnesota. Abdiel arrived from Mexico at six, Adilene as an infant, and both were protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which grants certain immigrants brought to the US as children temporary protection from deportation and authorization to work, but no permanent legal status.
They married, raised four children, bought a home and opened a church in Minneapolis.
But as immigration enforcement increased, they told CNN they became afraid to go to stores or send their children to school. Abdiel also said he was told his commercial driver's license would be canceled.
Instead of waiting to see what might happen, they sold their home, vehicles and belongings and left for Mexico.
Seven months later, they were living with Abdiel's mother in Morelos, where the children were struggling with Spanish and enrolling in school, and their parents were trying to adjust to a country that no longer felt familiar.
"I don't know anything about Mexico," Adilene told CNN. "Everything I know is Minnesota. I'm in shock."
The Dominguezes left on their own, without using a federal program. But the pressure they described mirrors a broader Trump administration strategy encouraging immigrants to depart voluntarily.
President Donald Trump signs a bill funding immigration enforcement in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 10. - Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Project Homecoming, a $915 million initiative, offers free flights and stipends of up to $2,600 to immigrants who leave through the CBP Home app. An internal DHS document reviewed by CNN in March showed nearly 72,000 people had departed through the program; more than half were already in ICE detention when they enrolled.
More than 72,000 immigration court cases also ended in voluntary departure so far in this fiscal year, compared with more than 35,000 the previous year.
The consequences are also reshaping the lives of US citizens in mixed-status families.
In Pittsburgh, CNN followed Julio Mendoza, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had lived in the United States since he was 11, as he prepared to leave with his American wife, Sasha, and their three US-born children.
Sasha said they feared Julio could be detained one day and simply not come home. Rather than risk that outcome, the entire family chose to move to Mexico together.
"Everything we do, we do together," Julio told CNN.
Living in hiding
For families who stay, the disruption often unfolds quietly, in the routines they begin to abandon.
Across the country, immigrants have stayed home from work, kept children out of school and avoided stores, churches and other places that once anchored daily life.
Jacobita Cortes, a United Methodist pastor in Chicago, said that fear has changed the rhythms of her community. "They're afraid to go to the store, to the supermarket," Cortes told CNN. "Where do our people go? To the supermarkets where you buy your tortillas, your meat; to the church where you go to thank God."
With his bag packed, a Venezuelan man peeks out the window of his apartment looking for any signs of federal agents after hearing reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be coming to detain immigrants for deportation in Aurora, Colorado, January 30, 2025. - Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
Some churches, she said, have moved services online, while congregations are helping families who are too afraid to leave home order groceries or arrange school pickups through neighbors and volunteers.
"If someone needs somebody to go do their shopping, they only have to pick up the phone and call," Cortes said. For parents who are afraid, she added, "find someone who can help, a neighbor or someone who can pick up the children from school."
The same pattern has surfaced elsewhere. In Minneapolis and New Orleans, CNN found once-bustling shops and restaurants growing quiet during federal immigration operations as some immigrants avoided work and parents kept children home from school.
In Brooklyn's Little Haiti, normally busy streets and businesses have grown quiet after the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.
Community leaders also warned of ripple effects in hospitals, nursing homes and home health care, where many Haitian immigrants work.
For some immigrants, the fear is no longer confined to the possibility of deportation. It is reshaping what it means to live a life in the United States.
CNN's Carolina Peguero, Priscilla Alvarez, Zoe Sottile, Blake Ellis , Melanie Hicken, Anna-Maja Rappard and Kyung Lah contributed to this report
Trump scores major immigration victory as judge clears way to end TPS protections for thousands of Somalis
Michael Sinkewicz
Sat, August 15, 2026
FOX NEWS
A side-by-side photo of protesters demonstrating against the Trump administration's immigration policies, and a photo of U.S. President Donald Trump signing executive orders at the White House. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Thursday, May 14, in a case involving birthright citizenship in the U.S. Photos via Getty ImagesMore
A federal judge has cleared the way for the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Somali nationals living in the United States.See more
President Donald Trump scored a major legal victory Friday after a federal judge cleared the way for his administration to terminate temporary legal protections for thousands of Somali nationals living in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston lifted a stay that had prevented the Department of Homeland Security from terminating Somalia's Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation, citing a June Supreme Court ruling that sharply limited judicial review of similar administration actions.
The decision allows the Trump administration to move forward with ending TPS for Somalia, potentially exposing affected migrants who lack another lawful basis to remain in the U.S. to deportation.
A side-by-side photo of protesters demonstrating against the Trump administration's immigration policies, and a photo of U.S. President Donald Trump signing executive orders at the White House. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Thursday, May 14, in a case involving birthright citizenship in the U.S. Photos via Getty ImagesMore
Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, had previously blocked the termination from taking effect in a lawsuit brought by four Somali nationals and two advocacy groups, including African Communities Together.
The Trump administration announced in January that it planned to terminate Somalia's TPS designation, with then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arguing that conditions in the country had improved enough to end the humanitarian protections.
The Supreme Court ruled in June in Mullin v. Doe that the TPS statute bars judicial review of certain non-constitutional decisions by the administration to terminate TPS designations. The court also found that the plaintiffs' equal protection challenge in that case was unlikely to succeed.
The ruling curtailed lower courts' ability to review Trump administration efforts to terminate TPS designations for nationals of multiple countries.
Plaintiffs challenging the termination of Somalia's designation argued that the administration's decision was motivated by bias against non-White immigrants, pointing to Trump's previous descriptions of Somalis as "garbage" and "low IQ people."
Following the Supreme Court's ruling, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint raising new constitutional claims and sought emergency relief in another effort to prevent Somalia's TPS protections from ending.
Burroughs issued an administrative stay earlier this month after African Communities Together and other plaintiffs alleged that the administration violated the Fifth Amendment by terminating Somalia's TPS designation based on racial and national-origin discrimination.
In Friday's ruling, Burroughs said the plaintiffs had presented a compelling case but concluded that the Supreme Court's decision constrained her ability to continue blocking the administration's action.
The Department of Homeland Security can move forward with terminating Somalia's Temporary Protected Status designation following a federal judge's ruling.
Burroughs wrote that she was "bound … to view things through the Mullin prism," referring to the Supreme Court case.
"Plaintiffs have made a convincing showing that they will suffer irreparable harm if the injunction is withheld … and the balance of hardships and the public interest also favor Plaintiffs, given that the government has made no showing that maintaining TPS status for the duration of this litigation would impose an undue burden," she wrote.
Despite those findings, Burroughs lifted the stay, allowing the administration's termination of Somalia's TPS designation to move forward.
The Trump administration's decision affects several thousand Somali nationals currently living in the United States.
Sources at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services previously told Fox News Digital that 2,471 Somali nationals in the U.S. currently have TPS, while another 1,383 have pending TPS applications.
Monoskop.org
https://monoskop.org/images/9/95/Hardt_Michael_Negri_Antonio_Empire.pdf
4.3 The Multitude against Empire. 393. Notes. 415. Index. 473. Page 11. PREFACE. Empire is materializing before our very eyes. Over the past several decades, as ...
Rebels-library.org
http://rebels-library.org/files/multitude.pdf
Page 1. MULTITUDE. WAR AND DEMOCRACY. IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE. MICHAEL HARDT ... Empire calls on war for its legitimation, the multitude calls on democracy as its ...
Newleftreview.org
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii120/articles/empire-twenty-years-on.pdf
Just as today's. Empire was formed in response to the insurgencies of the multitudes from below, so too, potentially, it could fall to them, as long as those.
