Springfield, Ohio, was thrust into the national spotlight this election cycle due to the vast number of Haitian migrants who had settled in the town over the last few years, but some of those migrants have already packed their bags and left in the wake of President-elect Trump’s sweeping win.

The town, which according to the 2020 census has under 60,000 residents, has struggled to cater to a population boom between 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian migrants following decades of population decline. Residents have complained that the uncontrolled influx has drained resources and services, made the town less safe, driven up rents and caused longer wait times for medical and social services.

Locals have especially expressed frustrations over road safety, arguing that immigrants who have no to little experience driving in their home countries have been allowed to take to the streets with ease, causing a dangerous situation on the roads.

Many of those migrants had settled in the community having attained the ability to live and work in the U.S. for a limited time thanks to temporary protected status (TPS) but President-elect Trump signaled on the campaign trail he would yank such permits, striking fear into the migrants, some of whom have already fled the town ahead of Trump’s return to office. 

TRUMP SELECTS SOUTH DAKOTA GOV KRISTI NOEM TO RUN DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

“People are leaving,” Margery Koveleski, of the Haitian Community Alliance (HCA), tells the Guardian.

“Some folks don’t have credit cards or access to the internet, and they want to buy a bus ticket or a plane ticket, so we help them book a flight.”

Jacob Payen, a co-founder of the HCA who also runs a business that includes helping Haitians in Springfield to file tax returns, also told the publication that migrants have been leaving.

“People are fully aware of the election result, and that is why they are leaving; they are afraid of a mass deportation,” Payen said. 

“Several of my customers have left. One guy with his family went to New Jersey; others have gone to Boston. I know three families that have gone to Canada.”

Some of the Haitian migrants are thought to have moved to nearby cities such as Dayton, where they believe they would be less visible to law enforcement, while others who had temporary asylum in Brazil are considering going back to the South American country, per the Guardian, citing community leaders.

OHIO CITY PLUNGED INTO HOUSING CRISIS AFTER 15,000+ MIGRANTS ARRIVE: ‘SETTING US UP TO FAIL’

Police patrol the streets of Port-au-Prince amid rampant gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, April 23, 2024. (REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol)

Migrants have been fleeing their home nation since it was plunged into a political crisis in 2018 with protests sweeping the island it shares with the Dominican Republic. Gang violence has exploded in the country and a transitionary council removed Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille from office earlier this month, replacing him in the role after just six months.

Springfield became a flashpoint in the presidential election when both President-elect Trump and Vice-President elect JD Vance claimed that Haitian migrants were eating pets there.  

“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said on the debate stage against Vice-President Harris. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”

Trump has also vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in the history of the U.S. and has appointed hardliner South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) while Tom Homan will be the new “Border Czar.” 

The DHS oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Noem will also oversee TPS and has deployed the state National Guard to the southern border several times in recent years.

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Haitian migrants in Mexico, left, and Vice-President elect JD Vance, right, who claimed migrants in Springfield were eating pets.  ((Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images and Daniel Cardenas/Anadolu via Getty Images))

Payen believes that droves of Haitian migrants leaving the town will have a detrimental impact on the local economy and in other states. 

The Guardian reports that the Haitian migrants filled thousands of jobs at area packaging and auto plants, which have helped rejuvenate the area, while Haitian restaurants regularly source food from other states.

“I pay thousands of dollars in income and property taxes every year,” Payen told the outlet. “And – because I work with Haitians to file their taxes – I see their W-2s and so on. If these people leave, that money is gone from the city and the local economy.”

The Buckeyes have fallen back to Earth.

After a tough loss on the road in College Station Friday night, Ohio State completely dropped out of the Week 3 Associated Press men’s basketball rankings Monday. The Buckeyes received the 35th-most votes.

Jake Diebler’s squad was No. 21 before losing by 14 points to No. 23 Texas A&M due to a poor shooting night and the inability to remain disciplined on the defensive end. Ohio State shot just 34 percent from the field and 27 percent from downtown; this came after back-to-back games shooting over 45 percent from deep.

On top of that, Ohio State picked up 12 fouls in each half, including putting the Aggies in the bonus with over seven minutes remaining in the first.

However, the Buckeyes seemed to have addressed a couple areas, even in their loss. One is that they can compete on the glass with one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country — in fact, Ohio State had more offensive boards than the reigning No. 1 team in that category.

In addition, and perhaps its still early, but Ohio State saw that it likely could not live and die by the 3-pointer; even John Mobley Jr., who started the season 7-for-8 from downtown, shot 3-for-7 from deep Friday.

Big Ten teams featured in this edition of the top 25 included No. 6 Purdue — who rose seven spots after a top-10 win over Alabama — No. 16 Indiana, new No. 19 Wisconsin, No. 24 Rutgers and No. 25 Illinois.

Ohio State can look to bounce back Tuesday in Columbus as it takes on Evansville at 7 p.m. The contest will stream live on Big Ten Plus.

DAYTON, Ohio — Have you ever wondered what it would be like if an ambulance could fly? For the 445th Air Lift Wing, it’s not a ‘what if’ but a ‘where and when’ as it pertains to transporting our nation’s heroes from hospitals and battlefields around the globe.

I was invited to take a flight with the 445th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron to get a closer look at how Ohio airmen are always preparing for their next mission.

“Within 24 hours I can be ready to go,” said flight medic Madi Potts.

She’s what’s called a traditional Air Force reservist. One day Potts might be in the classroom at her university or working as a nurse. The next day, she could have orders and be in her military uniform working on a C-17 or other type of military transport.

“I just got out of flight medic school for this about two months ago,” she said.

The 445th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron consists of both full-time military members and reservists. Training is the same for everyone.

On the tarmac at Wright Patterson Air Base, a C-17 Globemaster III sits whirling with activity as airmen work with training mannequins — and live actors — labeled with a variety of health conditions lying on transport litters.

While the pilots are busy readying the aircraft to taxi and takeoff; flight nurses and flight medics ensure patients are assessed and loaded. It’s a well-orchestrated process the airmen of the 445th appear to be able to do with their eyes closed.

Master Sergeant Brenna Pogoy, the mission clinical coordinator, is putting the airmen through a variety of scenarios to ensure the unit remains at the top of its game for when it matters.

“This is nothing like a real world but that’s because you’re not having a fire every flight on a real world, you’re not having an emergency landing all the time,” she said.

But the overload of events is to drive the nurses and medics to the brink of their ability, so they learn to dig a little deeper during an emergency.

“When it does happen and when a patient does have an emergency, or the aircraft has an emergency you are ready and there’s muscle memory in that,” Pogoy said.

The Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron’s mission is broad.

This crew could be called to transport service men and women from different military air bases within the U.S. from Walter Reed Hospital to their hometown hospital or military base, for example.

The mission can also take them near the front lines, most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, picking up the wounded and transporting them to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany or other military bases for more treatment before returning to the U.S.

“On the C-17 we can max floor load, we can do 12 on the ramp and another 48 on the main floor,” Master Sergeant Marjorie Butcher said.

That’s a total of 60 patients on litters strapped to the floor at one time with a team of two nurses and three medical technicians providing care throughout the duration of the flight. In addition, depending on the severity of injuries full medical teams can set up a hospital-like setting within the transport planes.

“The Air Force trains us well and they trust us to do our job,” Butcher said.

Then there’s the mission Butcher would deem as unregulated. The unplanned scenario was seen around the world in August 2021 as the U.S. evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan as part of the U.S. withdrawal.

“My first deployment in the military was to Kabul. That was my first flight ever I’d never flown patients or anything,” Butcher said.

She enlisted in 2015 and received her wings to fly with the Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron in April of 2021, just months before the historic images seen around the world as hundreds of thousands of Afghanis flooded the Kabul airstrip trying to get on a C-17 to freedom.

“I was the last AE flight out of Kabul,” Butcher said.

At least one of those C-17s taking part in the evacuation was photographed with a reported 800 men, women, and children.

Colonel Michael Baker, Commander of the 445th Operations Group, told me that members of his unit on one of those flights dealt with a live birth on the flight out of Afghanistan.

Baker said what happened in Afghanistan was part of several debriefs and analyses on how to improve training and mission preparedness.

In all military training, there are checklists. The pilots go through them step by step and operators like flight nurses and medics within the 445th AES go through them. However, training must also prepare airmen for what’s outside those normal checklists.

“We put a lot of emphasis on what are called contingency operations where we really try to flex and push and challenge ourselves and get outside of the letter of our regulations and say where can we flex,” Major Issac Cade said.

Cade is the flight nurse on this flight and the medical crew director.

“We’ll run different scenarios just to see what happens, stress inoculation,” Cade said.

That stress inoculation allows them to run through multiple scenarios that push the limit way beyond the norms in an environment where it’s safe to do it.

“Ultimately the buck stops here,” he said. “If something goes wrong, we answer for it.”

For Cade, this is another day in the life of a reservist.

“I’m a nurse practitioner for Premier Health,” he said. “So tomorrow I will put on my civvies, my work clothes and then go into the office like nothing happened.”

It’s what tens of thousands of traditional reservists do regularly. Living their daily lives, contributing to the community they live in, ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice to answer the call for our country.

If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.