<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Federal immigration officers have arrested 380 Haitian citizens in Springfield, Ohio, following the end of a federal program that allowed illegal immigrants from Haiti to avoid deportation.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced during a roundtable event in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had arrested hundreds of Haitians who lost their temporary protected status last month. Approximately 350,000 Haitians lost their protection from deportation, and those who remain in the United States are considered illegally present.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“We’ve made 380 arrests in Springfield. We’re going to continue to push. We encourage everybody to go home,” Mullin stated during a discussion with local law enforcement and ICE officials. “Your state and your country needs you. That’s where you should be headed. If you want to rebuild your country, go back and rebuild it. Take it back.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The number of arrests is more than 10 times the estimate provided by a representative from the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, which reported two weeks ago that 29 Haitians had been arrested from the city’s approximate population of 15,000 Haitians.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">President Donald Trump previously highlighted Springfield during the 2024 presidential election, making unverified claims that Haitians in the city had been seen butchering household pets.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Washington Examiner reported earlier this summer that ICE was preparing to target Haitians on a national level, including in Springfield, due to Trump’s comments during the election.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, noted during his show on Real America’s Voice on Friday that “at 170 to 200 people a plane, one plane a week, instead of one plane a month, you’re going to deport 10,000 this year. We have hundreds of thousands of Haitians here.”</p>