Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) again defended Haitian migrants Sunday, as a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s attempts to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for those from the Caribbean island plays out.
“I think the policy to revoke that is wrong,” DeWine told host Margaret Brennan on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” “I think there’s a consensus in this country. As we all have said, let’s get rid of the violent offenders. Get them out of here.”
DeWine later noted, though, that “once you get beyond that, I don’t think there’s a consensus for taking people who are working, who are supporting their family,” including Haitians in his state — specifically in Springfield, Ohio, the subject of false accusations from President Trump and Vice President Vance during the 2024 campaign regarding Haitian migrants eating household pets.
“These are people who, if you talk to the employers, they were filling jobs that were not being able to be filled in any other way,” the Ohio Republican noted. “So it’s been a big boost to the economy. So if one day they know that TPS is taken away, no employer can hire them anymore.”
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes implemented a stay on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s order halting TPS for Haitians in the U.S., which was scheduled to go into effect on Feb. 3. The order is on hold pending the outcome of a lawsuit five Haitian TPS holders filed against the administration last July.
On Wednesday, Reyes granted the administration an extension on responding to an amended complaint the plaintiffs filed until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the stay she implemented. Once the appeals court rules on the stay, the administration will have five business days to respond.
As of last March, more than 330,000 Haitians had been approved for TPS, according to the Congressional Research Service.
