Haitians helped boost Springfield’s economy – now they’re fleeing in fear of Trump

Every morning, Alicia Mercado makes the 50-minute drive from her home in Columbus to Springfield, where she runs the Adasa Latin Market store. She opened the business next to a Haitian restaurant in 2023, having spotted a gap in the market for Caribbean and Latin foods – the neighborhood’s Haitian population was booming at the time.

But over the past year, she says her business, which includes an international money transfer kiosk, has taken a major hit.

“About 80 to 90% of our customers were Haitians; now that’s down to about 60% over the past six months,” she says. “No more people are moving to Springfield.”

Mercado’s experiences are being echoed around the town of 58,000 people that garnered international attention last year when Donald Trump falsely claimed during a presidential debate that immigrants were eating people’s pets.

Until the end of last year, Springfield was something of a surprise economic juggernaut.

A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that it ranked second among all Ohio cities for job growth since the pandemic.

New housing projects, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, among the biggest investments the city has ever made.

That growth was partly fueled by the availability of manufacturing and blue-collar jobs that were eagerly filled by the more than 15,000 Haitian immigrants who had moved to the city over the past eight years, fueling businesses such as Mercado’s.

Local companies got cheap, reliable labor, while Haitian workers received stable income, health insurance and a safe place to live. Many bought homes and invested their hard-earned income into improving the city’s housing stock that, in turn, padded the city’s tax coffers. For the most part, it was a win for all involved.

But since then, the city’s economic fortunes have spiraled.

Springfield businesses, big and small, are struggling in the aftermath of thousands of Haitians fleeing the town after the Trump administration’s termination of the humanitarian parole program for citizens of several countries, including Haiti, in June. On top of that, the government has ended temporary protected status, affecting the immigration status of more than half a million Haitians, which comes into effect on or before 5 February 2026.

The Department of Homeland Security says conditions in Haiti have improved to allow US-based Haitians to return. However, violence prompted Haiti’s government in August to issue a state of emergency in parts of the country. The US Department of State currently has a level four “do not travel” advisory for Haiti.

The consequences of these moves are being keenly felt in places such as Springfield.

Since January, when the Trump administration took office, the percentage of manufacturing jobs in Springfield has been falling by double digits as the civilian labor force also declines, something thought to partly be fueled by Haitians leaving the city due to fear of the administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

At Topre America, an automotive parts manufacturing company north-east of downtown Springfield, dozens of jobs that Haitians had once filled – forklift drivers, supervisors and stackers – have remained unfilled on the company’s employment webpage for months.

Unemployment has ticked up slightly in the city – but still at a rate twice the state’s increase – in the 12 months since Trump’s racist comments.

In a city where income tax makes up the majority of municipal funding, the loss of thousands of Haitian workers means fewer dollars for public services for all residents.

“Our tax revenue, which is the backbone of our general fund, has flattened. After years of strong growth post-pandemic, the rebound is behind us,” Springfield’s city finance director, Katie Eviston, reported at a city commission public meeting in June.

Previous estimates had tracked that 2025 would see a 3.5% increase in income tax funds for the city. By June, that anticipated growth, however, had been wiped out in what Eviston said was a “level of decline [that] hasn’t occurred since the early days of the Covid shutdown”.

Moreover, the city faces a worrying $4.25m financial hole due to the cancellation of a host of Biden-era programs and grants by the Trump administration.

Springfield and its businesses aren’t alone in dealing with the fallout of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Experts say it has consequences for businesses and companies right across the country. In June, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) said that ending visas for international workers would leave 85,000 jobs unfilled.

“Stripping [immigrants’] ability to work and threatening them with removal is not just a human cost; it is an economic one,” an AEM executive wrote in the Washington Examiner.

Small communities in Indiana, Pennsylvania and elsewhere in Ohio that enjoyed an economic rebound in the aftermath of the pandemic are also experiencing depressed purchasing power due to White House-fueled job cuts.

“Trump’s immigration policy slowed inflows. Suddenly, more firms have seen their immigrant worker supplies decline, forcing them to pay more to attract native workers, thereby placing upward pressure on inflation,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Metro thinktank.

“This, combined with Trump’s tariffs, has created serious upward price pressure along with the rise in labor costs – not a great combination for many US producers in the heartland.”

Without the ability to work, many Haitians are leaving the US.

According to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, more than 26,000 Haitians sought asylum there in the first six months of 2025, many who are thought to have fled the US. By contrast, just 21,756 claims were made for all of 2024.

Many Haitians in Springfield, however, are stuck in place, without jobs and with bills mounting up.

“A lot of people have work problems – we have lost half our customers,” says Youdins Solon, who helps out at his family’s Keket Bongou Caribbean restaurant in south-east Springfield. Solon moved to Springfield last March, having lived in Florida for 18 months prior. But by the summer, he lost his job at a local Amazon distribution center when his immigration status was revoked. He says he is one of hundreds who’ve been laid off.

“I’m lucky because I have my family here, but for a lot of people, they moved [out of Springfield] because they were afraid of the situation.”

But for those who have staked their businesses on a thriving immigrant community in Springfield, it’s not easy to pack up and leave.

“We order Haitian food from companies in Florida and Chicago every two weeks,” says Mercado, “but now, that’s greatly reduced.”