Fact check: Are Haitian immigrants in Springfield in the US illegally?

CBS News moderators muted vice presidential candidates’ microphones only once during the October 1 vice presidential debate: during a discussion about immigration. Specifically, when they were on the topic of immigration in Springfield, Ohio – the small Midwestern city thrown into the national spotlight after former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, spread baseless claims about immigrants there eating pets.

The point in question: Are Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, in the United States illegally?

During the debate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz criticised Vance for spreading misinformation about Springfield’s Haitian immigrants. Moderators gave Vance a minute to respond.

“In Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes,” Vance said.

Walz spoke again before moderator and CBS News’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan stepped in.

“And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status: temporary protected status,” Brennan said.

“Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check, and since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on,” Vance said. “So there’s an application called the CBP One app, where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. That is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for 10 years.”

We rated Vance’s statement about the phone app – which is a scheduling tool, not an application for asylum or parole – mostly false.

For this claim, we’ll focus on Haitian immigrants in Springfield, whom city officials say account for most of the immigrants who have settled there in the past four years. Are they in the US legally?

We can’t confirm the status of every immigrant who has recently moved to the city. But local and state officials said most are there legally because they’re in the US under temporary legal protections, humanitarian parole and temporary protected status.

Immigration law experts told PolitiFact that Haitians in these temporary programmes are in the US legally.

Vance’s spokesperson did not respond to our request for comment. But Vance has previously said about Haitian migrants: “If [Democratic presidential candidate] Kamala Harris waves a wand, illegally, and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them illegal aliens.”

Immigration programmes give Haitians temporary permission to be in the US

President Joe Biden has created and expanded ways for Haitians and other immigrants to temporarily live and work in the US legally. They are:

Humanitarian parole for applicants outside the US: In January 2023, Biden expanded a humanitarian parole programme for Venezuelans to include Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans. Under the programme, every month, up to 30,000 eligible people can receive humanitarian parole, allowing them to legally enter the US and live and work there for up to two years. To qualify for the programme, people need to apply from outside the US and have a US sponsor, such as a family member.

As of August, nearly 214,000 Haitians had entered the US under this humanitarian parole.

Temporary protected status: In June, the Biden administration expanded and redesignated temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants. People who have temporary protected status are protected from deportation. This protection is granted by the homeland security secretary to people from certain countries undergoing war, environmental disasters and epidemics. The programme also allows eligible immigrants to legally live and work in the US for six- to 18-month periods. To apply, temporary protected status beneficiaries must be in the US at the time of their home country’s designation.

Before the June redesignation, about 200,000 Haitians benefitted from the temporary protection. The June action allowed any Haitian who met eligibility requirements and had been living in the US by June 3, 2024, to apply. The Department of Homeland Security estimated 309,000 additional Haitians would be eligible.

People can apply for temporary protected status whether they entered the US legally or illegally.

Humanitarian parole at US ports of entry: In January 2023, Biden expanded the use of CBP One, the scheduling phone application launched by the Trump administration to allow people in Mexico to schedule appointments at official US ports of entry. There, immigration officials can give people humanitarian parole for up to two years, allowing them to live and work in the US as they apply for asylum. From January 2023 to May 2024, 119,000 Haitians scheduled appointments using the app. We don’t know how many were granted this parole.

Wilda Brooks rallies with other members of South Florida’s Haitian-American community to condemn hate speech and misinformation about Haitian immigrants on September 22, 2024, in North Miami, Florida [Rebecca Blackwell/AP]

These programmes give Haitians lawful status in the US

The Immigration and Nationality Act describes people on temporary protected status as “being in, and maintaining, lawful status as a nonimmigrant”. The term “nonimmigrant” refers to people who are in the US temporarily.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services says on its website that people with humanitarian parole or temporary protected status have “lawful immigration status”. Immigration law gives the executive branch the authority to grant people these protections, Jean Reisz, co-director of the University of Southern California Immigration Clinic, said.

We asked the Department of Homeland Security and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency within the department, about the immigration status of people with temporary protected status and humanitarian parole. We did not hear back.

But immigration law experts said once immigrants have temporary protected status protections, they are in the US legally — regardless of how they entered the US before receiving it.

However, temporary protected status and humanitarian parole do not provide people a pathway to citizenship. So people with humanitarian parole or temporary protected status must use another avenue – such as asylum, marriage or employment – to gain legal permanent residence.

That leaves people who have these protections in a “precarious, nonpermanent status” that can expire or be ended by the president, Reisz said. In November 2017, for example, Trump tried to end temporary protected status for Haitians. Legal challenges halted the termination. Trump is again promising to revoke Haiti’s temporary protected status if elected.

If protections expire or are terminated, people revert to the status they had before these protections, said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the University of California in Los Angeles. And people who don’t have a legal basis to stay in the US would have to leave the country or be subject to deportation, Reisz said.

But that deportation wouldn’t be immediate, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a Cornell University immigration law professor.

“They would all have a right to a removal hearing before an immigration judge to determine whether they have some right to remain here, such as asylum,” Yale-Loehr said. That could take years because of immigration court backlogs.

Vance, left, and Walz met on October 1, 2004, in New York in the only vice presidential debate before November’s elections in the US [Matt Rourke/AP]

Our ruling

Vance said immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “illegal immigrants”.

City officials said most of the immigrants who recently arrived in Springfield are Haitians. We don’t know the immigration status for all of them, but officials have said many are in the country under humanitarian parole and temporary protected status. These protections allow them to temporarily live and work in the country legally. Both humanitarian parole and temporary protected status are considered lawful statuses under immigration law, immigration experts said.

Neither programme lets people stay permanently in the US, but while the temporary protections are in place, they are not here illegally, immigration experts said.

We rate Vance’s claim false.