After Haitian illegal immigrants invading small towns across the U.S. made headlines last year, the Trump administration has moved to end Biden-era protections for the immigrations as mass deportations continue. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday that she had rescinded the temporary protected status (TPS) that then-President Joe Biden and his administration had afforded to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Haiti. “President Trump and I are returning TPS to its original status: temporary,” Noem quipped in a DHS press release.

TPS allows immigrants from designated countries to remain legally in the U.S. for a specified period of time, even if they entered the country illegally. Haiti was initially afforded TPS in 2010. The Biden administration and its DHS secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, continued to extend the country’s TPS, flooding the U.S. with Haitian immigrants. According to DHS statistics, over 520,000 Haitian immigrants, many of whom entered the U.S. illegally, may still be in the country.

Last year, the relatively small Ohio municipality of Springfield featured in headlines — and even warranted a mention in U.S. presidential debates — as news surfaced of the mayhem caused by dropping 20,000 Haitians into the town of 60,000 Ohioans. The immigrants overwhelmed Springfield’s infrastructure and crippled its social services. Since 2021, the county school system has hired dozens of Creole interpreters and registered over 1,600 non-English-speaking students, sometimes having to place 20-year-old Haitians in freshman high school classes with 13-year-olds.

Haitians have also been given preference over Americans for social benefits. The average length of emergency health clinic visits has roughly tripled, usually due to the language barrier, and an estimated 90% of those waiting in line for welfare services are Haitians, who notably do not bring paperwork. The amount of money Rocking Horse Community Health Center in Springfield has had to spend on translation services has increased more than tenfold since 2020.

Car accidents have increased drastically, driving up the price of insurance, since many of the Haitians do not know how to drive. In one instance, a Haitian driver with a Mexican license drove his minivan into a school bus, severely injuring 20 children and killing an 11-year-old boy. Immigrants have also been provided with thousands of dollars each in government subsidies, allowing them to pay exorbitantly high rents, consequently driving up the price of rent across the whole of Springfield, to the extent that Americans cannot afford housing. In some cases, Springfield landlords have even had American families vacate properties in order to rent them to the higher-paying Haitians receiving thousands of dollars in benefits. Additionally, stories emerged of Haitians stealing pets or fowl from parks and eating them.

Although Haitians in Springfield stole headlines, in addition to cats and dogs, other small American towns have been similarly impacted. Tremont City, close to Springfield, also experienced a steep rise in traffic accidents, much like its Buckeye State neighbor. Charleroi, Pennsylvania has been similarly devastated. Roughly 2,000 Haitians invading the small town of 4,000 have caused sharp increases in traffic accidents and violent crime, including carjackings and muggings. As has been the case in Springfield, Charleroi’s schools have been overwhelmed, with Haitian immigrants committing crimes against American students. The Keystone State town’s economy and job market have also been decimated, with Haitians agreeing to work for extremely low wages, replacing American workers who could never live on what the Haitians are paid.

A DHS spokeswoman said Wednesday, “Biden and Mayorkas attempted to tie the hands of the Trump administration by extending Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status by 18 months — far longer than justified or necessary.” She added, “We are returning integrity to the TPS system, which has been abused and exploited by illegal aliens for decades.” TPS for Haitians in the U.S. will expire August 3, after which point U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be free to deport Haitians who entered the country illegally. Although Noem recently warned illegal immigrants to leave the U.S. before they are “hunted down and deported,” some Haitian immigrants began “self-deporting” last year, shortly after President Donald Trump won the election.

In a White House press briefing Thursday, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and National Security Advisor Stephen Miller, broadly considered the architect of Trump’s immigration policy, announced that multiple federal agencies would be collaborating to increase the number of deportations carried out:

“I can promise you that the full might of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and every element and instrument of national power will be used to remove with speed all criminal illegals from the soil of the United States of America, to enforce final removal orders, and to ensure that this country is for American citizens and those that legally belong in this country.”

According to recently-released DHS data, Trump’s administration deported 37,660 illegal immigrants within its first month. Administration officials have warned that ICE and other federal agencies cannot increase deportation numbers without more funding and more detention space.