Ohio’s Republican Governor Says Haitians ‘Played a Major Role’ in Springfield’s ‘Economic Comeback’

“It’s time for Mr. Trump’s Nixon-goes-to-China moment,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, wrote this week in The New York Times. For President Richard Nixon, that meant strategically establishing diplomatic relations with China, even as a crusader against communism. President Donald Trump’s moment, DeWine says, would be pursuing a more open legal immigration policy, even as he has crusaded against illegal migration.

The essay outlines Trump’s work to stem the latter, and says the president oversaw a “remarkable turnaround.” This lends him a unique sort of credibility, according to DeWine, to champion pragmatic policy that is good for the country—from incentivizing high-skilled immigration to allowing Haitian nationals to stay—despite the currency the topic has as a lightning-rod culture war issue.

“As Ohio’s governor, I understand the need for a sensible immigration policy,” he wrote. “In our state, very simply, we need people.”

A big reason for this: The birthrate is falling and has been for almost 20 years. While it may be tempting to push Americans to have more babies, the policies meant to increase fertility rates are highly ineffective. “Pro-natalist policies have a weak track record in every country where they’ve been tried,” Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote in the June 2023 issue of Reason. “Countries from Russia to Japan to Italy have tried an array of measures—from pressure campaigns to subsidized child care to giving people days off work for making babies—to raise national birthrates. Yet fertility rates remain stable or continue to fall.”

DeWine is a realist here. “The Congressional Budget Office projects that starting in 2030, deaths will outpace births and all of our population growth will come from net immigration,” he wrote in the Times. This is a practical problem. “Immigrants help fill work force gaps. Foreign-born workers represent nearly 30 percent of our country’s long-term direct-care work force. They provide one-third of the workers who allow older Americans to remain in their homes.” They are also filling specialized roles: “As of 2023, 22 percent of Ohio’s physicians, 12 percent of our STEM workers and 8 percent of our entrepreneurs were foreign-born. Looking to the future, where advanced manufacturing, aerospace and health care will drive our economy, we need both native-born workers and immigrants.”

Trump campaigned heavily on fighting illegal immigration. But his administration has also devoted quite a bit of energy to suppressing legal migration—by heavily reducing, for example, our international student population—despite that immigrants are not the only ones who lose from that. “Discouraging just one-third of international STEM graduates could leave the American economy 0.7 percent to 1.3 percent smaller, or roughly $200 billion to $400 billion in GDP over a decade,” wrote Reason contributing editor Veronique de Rugy, “equivalent to losing the entire economy of Utah or South Carolina.”

DeWine also touches on a group that has been the target of quite a bit of derision: the Haitian nationals who have come to Ohio. Many received temporary protected status due to the severe instability in that country, which is largely run by armed gangs.

NOW: Haitian man collapses on the ground in tears as he is fitted with an ankle monitor by ICE office in Blue Ash Ohio. TPS holders are checking in at the location as the protective status ended pic.twitter.com/xCLAXh9ljq

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) August 9, 2026

A video of one such Haitian in DeWine’s state recently went viral, as he collapsed to the ground after the government fitted him with an ankle monitor. “In Springfield, Ohio, Haitian nationals have played a major role in the city’s economic comeback,” DeWine wrote. “They’ve filled jobs, repaired homes, paid taxes, started businesses and supported their families. But the administration has ended their Temporary Protected Status, a move I have vocally opposed.”

That is not the story that has saturated the conversation. The Haitians who have come to the U.S. have been the subject of feverish culture warring, the implication being that they are sucking America dry. Yet DeWine’s message is illustrative of the fact that such relationships are not one-sided.