The governor opposes a bid by President Trump and his aides to end what’s known as Temporary Protected Status for Haitian refugees sheltering in Clark County – and boosting its economy.
Life expectancy in Ohio is 74.5 year. In Haiti, it’s 64.9 years. Infant mortality in Ohio: 7.1 per 1,000 live births; in Haiti, it is as high as 32 per thousand, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
Among Haiti’s 11 million people, per capita Gross Domestic Product is about $2,509. In the United States, it’s about $92,000. And virtually every facet of life in Haiti plays out amid unrelenting violence and corruption, in an otherwise culturally rich society.
In plain English, Temporary Protected Status shields Haitians sheltering in Springfield from being forcibly returned to the hell that Haiti is today.
DeWine opposes the president’s goal not only because the governor considers it flat-out wrong, ethically, but also because hard-working Haitian refugees have become sparkplugs of Clark County’s economy.
DeWine and first lady Fran DeWine (and many of the Ohioans the DeWines personally know) have been generous supporters of a charity, benefiting Haiti and Haitians, known as Hands Together.
Its founder (in the 1980s) and leader is Catholic priest from Philadelphia, the Rev. Thomas Hagan, member of a religious order known as the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. Hagan, revered by virtually anyone who encounters him, began his ministry in Haiti after a mission trip there is the1980s with students from Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College.
Mike and Fran DeWine and a nonpartisan circle of friends have been generous supporters of Father Hagan, whom Mike DeWine – already familiar with Haiti’s horrific circumstances — met through mutual friends when the governor was in Congress.
Moreover, the DeWines founded and generously support the Becky DeWine School in Haiti, whose multiple sites offer free education, food and other betterments or impoverished Haitian children in the Haitian capital’s teeming, crime-ridden Cité Soleil slum. The school is named for the DeWines’ eldest daughter, who died, age 22, in a 1993 traffic accident.
The Haitian influx into Clark County has unquestionably boosted the region’s economy. Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland research found that for the two years beginning in early 2020 inside the bank’s territory (Ohio, plus parts of Kentucky, Pennsylvania. and West Virginia), two regions – Huntington-Ashland (West Virginia–Kentucky–Ohio), at 2.7 percent, and Springfield, at 2.3 percent – saw the greatest job growth.
By last fall, though, according to the British dally newspaper the Guardian, “Springfield businesses, big and small, are struggling in the aftermath of thousands of Haitians fleeing the town after the Trump administration’s (moves, or planned moves)” to send refugees back to Haiti.
This is how a presidency that vows to Make America Great Again rewards Clark County, which gave 64% of its 2024 presidential vote to Donald Trump.
If Trump (and Cincinnati sidekick J.D. Vance) get their way, they’d in effect punish Clark County’s Haitians for wanting to be productive, law-abiding Ohioans by returning them to one of Earth’s most hellish places.
In contrast, Mike DeWine – who knows where he’s from and knows what that region needs – once again is the adult in the room.
Sure, the House Bill 6-FirstEnergy affair shadows DeWine’s record. But what’s lost is that HB 6 only became law because it drew enough “yes” votes from Democrats to reach DeWine’s desk.
Meanwhile, the governor’s refusal to beat on Haitian refuges is or should be a badge of honor.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him attsuddes@gmail.com.
