In Springfield, Ohio, Haitian residents and allies gathered for a vigil after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians. Community leaders described immediate fear for families, legal fight
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — For the last two years, Vilès Dorsainvil has managed to keep his composure while other people in his community struggled just to get through the day.
The executive director of the Haitian Community Support Center in Springfield has fielded false claims accusing Haitians of eating pets. watched Haitian residents cope with unemployment and housing and food insecurity. and spent countless hours in interview after interview as the government and courts argued over their legal status.
But on Thursday morning, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision landed, the calm he’d trained himself to project finally cracked. He sat solemnly beside Pastor Carl Ruby. a leader of local advocacy coalition Springfield G92. inside the sanctuary of Central Christian Church. His arms were crossed over his stomach; his gaze drifted far away.
“Today was the saddest day since I’ve been here because, as a foreigner in this land, I expected what I knew about the U.S.,” Dorsainvil said during a virtual press conference that morning. “I used to know a USA, where human dignity was valued — justice was valued — but it’s no longer this.”
In one of the last decision days of the season. the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Department of Homeland Security in Mullin v. Doe, allowing the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian recipients to take effect. In moments after the ruling. hundreds of thousands of immigrants across the country became undocumented. and families—often mixed-citizenship— braced for what came next.
In Springfield, a small post-industrial city about 40 miles west of the state capital that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance put in the spotlight in 2024, chaos spread quickly among roughly 15,000 Temporary Protected Status holders.
“Coming from a country where it is not safe, and there will be some family separation, I expected the Supreme Court to take those into consideration and do a better ruling, but unfortunately, this is not the case,” Dorsainvil said.
Pastor Carl Ruby, speaking at the same morning news conference, framed Springfield’s response as a faith-based stand. He said the coalition’s name comes from the 92 times the Hebrew word “ger. ” meaning foreigner. appears in the Bible’s Old Testament. “We’ve had to think about the issue of providing sanctuary,” Ruby said. “When there’s a conflict between man’s laws and God’s laws. we have an obligation to side with God’s laws.”.
As the court’s decision spread nationwide, the legal fight that led to it has been just as prolonged as the fear it triggered.
Organizations representing Haitian Temporary Protected Status holders sued DHS in March 2025. after then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first attempted to terminate Temporary Protected Status. Over the last year, federal courts undid Noem’s partial vacation of the legal status. That move had sought to revoke the Biden administration’s February 2026 extension and force recipients to return to Haiti in August 2025. while also blocking the government from ending the program.
The Trump administration appealed the case to the Supreme Court in March, asking the justices to decide whether the statute governing Temporary Protected Status prevents courts from reviewing the department secretary’s designation of status.
The six conservative justices concluded that it does.
“The TPS statute plainly bars consideration of respondents’ non-constitutional claims,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “It allows ‘no judicial review of any determination … with respect to the … termination of a TPS designation.’”
As a result. Syrian and Haitian Temporary Protected Status holders are not entitled to orders postponing the termination of their designations during litigation. The court also held that the Haitian respondents did not provide sufficient evidence that contentious statements made by Trump and Noem demonstrated that racial animus motivated the termination of Haitians’ Temporary Protected Status.
In a concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas went further, claiming that “aliens” do not have federal protections under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
The ruling arrived with additional procedural weight for the Haitian respondents. The week before the decision, counsel for the Haitian respondents had asked the court to dismiss the case due to newly discovered evidence they believed would support their equal protection claim.
During the press conference, Geoff Pipoly, lead attorney for the Haitian respondents, described the decision in blunt terms.
“The new rule from the Supreme Court is that when it comes to TPS decisions. the administration — any executive branch agency — can break the law flagrantly. openly and make no secret of it. and the federal courts can’t stop it. ” Pipoly said. He added that his legal team was still reviewing the opinion and planned to evaluate what remained of the claims to see if legal recourse was still possible.
“The Supreme Court’s decision means that many, many people are going to die violent, needless deaths,” Pipoly said. “That’s the bottom line.”
For Haitian families in Springfield, the legal language is inseparable from personal memory of violence—and from the question of what “termination” means in practice.
Marc Joseph provides immigration and legal services through Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio. He has lived in Springfield for two to three years and said he remembers what it was like to flee Haiti. In 2019. he and his wife witnessed gangsters kill her little brother and ran for their lives so their children would not be left orphaned. In 2021, Joseph said his older brother was shot and killed outside an immigration building in Haiti. Later, he said, his aunt and two of his cousins were killed as gangs fought over territory.
“I don’t really understand why this decision come up because where are we going to send 300,000 Haitians?” Joseph, who is a U.S. citizen, said. “This situation in Haiti is still a reality.”
Laura. a Haitian Creole interpreter who asked that Salon use only her first name. described the fear that spread when the news reached people in the community. She said she witnessed a mother’s reaction as disbelief gave way to choking dread about what the decision could mean for her American-born children.
“She clung to her baby, and said, ‘I just had this baby. I’m still bleeding from my cesarean. and to say they will start deportation. will they rip my child away?’” Margery Koveleski. a freelance interpreter. said. Koveleski told of the same mother continuing in terror: “She said. ‘I literally would commit suicide if they take me into detention and they take my child away.’”.
Koveleski, Laura, Joseph, and Mia Perez—an event speaker and founder of immigrant advocacy organization Voices of Immigrants—said they attended because many people in the community could not.
As night fell on Springfield City Hall. hundreds of organizers. supporters. and residents gathered in the stone courtyard for an hour-and-a-half-long vigil. Signs reading “Love your neighbor as yourself” were passed hand to hand. Local clergy-turned-activists spoke out against the ruling, and the World House Choir joined them in protest song. “Everyone of these people are ours” rang out through the courtyard.
Organizers also circulated cards urging the state’s two Republican senators, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, to vote for SB 4814, a bill that would designate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians through the end of Trump’s term.
A teacher in Springfield City. who declined to share their name out of concern for potential repercussions. told Salon they came to the vigil to show support for people affected by the ruling. They said they work with Haitian students and that those students’ safety and well-being matters to them. as does the well-being of the wider community. They held a handmade sign reading “Protect Our Haitian Neighbors.”.
“It just is very disheartening seeing the distress on my students’ faces when they come into school, and knowing what they are dealing with at home, which is then reflected in the school day,” the teacher said.
Aspen Forest. a 26-year-old community organizer. said they had only learned of the turmoil in Springfield after the Supreme Court decision but still wanted to help. They scouted out the donation links posted on a board by the makeshift stage and began bouncing ideas about pop-up food drives and donations at the soup kitchen they work with in Dayton to benefit the anticipated need in Springfield.
“Humanity as a whole, we are one big community,” Forest said. “We have so many greater powers that want to turn us against each other, so that we lose sight of what power we do have, and that is to take care of each other on the very ground-level of community.”
Cynthia Lennon, a resident of nearby Xenia, Ohio, said her faith brought her to the vigil. She wore a bright turquoise shirt referencing Bible scripture from Leviticus 19:33-34, which commands followers to love the foreigner as they love themselves.
After speakers took the mic and the crowd sang “America the Beautiful,” Lennon stepped away briefly to sing along. She then returned as a small group of anti-immigrant protesters waved weathered American flags and taunted the crowd.
“I just wanted to be a part of that because that’s important,” Lennon said. Before leaving the conversation, she also listed losses she said Springfield could see and her fears from the ruling. She said. “I’m scared that we’re going to have a Minneapolis again … That people of color might just be generally targeted.” She added that she has plans to donate and volunteer with local organizations.
Throughout the vigil, Dorsainvil kept returning to what the community needs to hear. He spoke first to fellow Haitians, then to their legal team, and finally to Springfielders as well as Americans across the country.
“Your compassion has reminded us of the very best of America,” he said. “You have welcomed your neighbors. spoken out against injustice. defended vulnerable families and refused to let hate and division have the final word. [Your] friendship and your courage have given hope to many people during one of the most difficult chapters of their lives.”.
“To every immigrant family who is anxious tonight, there are people across this nation who believe in you, who stayed with you, and who will continue advocating for your rights and your dignity,” Dorsainvil added.
But after the vigil ended—when the crowd cleared and the lingering press packed up—Dorsainvil’s face changed again.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” he said softly, his head hanging and gaze distant, when asked what was next for him.
He said he was worried about how the termination of his TPS would affect his pursuit of a master’s degree at Wright State University. He said he might be considered an out-of-state resident, which he said would make his courses more expensive.
He later reflected on what it meant to serve as the national spokesperson of Haitian Springfield for much of the last two years, and the toll he’s taken while he sorts out a pending asylum application and concerns for family members behind the scenes.
“The community needed someone to do it,” he said.
“To me, everyone has some type of conscience that would help them take the best decision because we were created with God’s value in us,” Dorsainvil added. “Even though we know that the world is evil, we know for sure that everyone has God’s value that would guide them to know what to do.”
“If they go against it, it’s because of their free will,” he said. “But many Americans know exactly what to do, and what they should do is to continue to support minority groups, marginalized people. Show up for them, speak on their behalf. That will make a lot of difference.”
Springfield Ohio Haitian Community Support Center Temporary Protected Status TPS Mullin v. Doe Supreme Court ruling DHS Kristi Noem Marc Joseph Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio SB 4814 Bernie Moreno Jon Husted Wright State University