The windows of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio, were papered over from the inside, the blinds were drawn, the door locked, and the doorbell camera running. A volunteer guard stood watch from within, peering out into the parking lot, scanning for activity, opening the door just one body’s width to let people slide in, or out, as needed.

There were fewer people entering or leaving than there ever had been before. A lot fewer—at the HSC, at the St. Vincent de Paul on Raffensperger Avenue, everywhere. Some were trying not to be seen. Many were, in a word, disappearing.

Around a square formation of plastic folding tables sat about a dozen Haitian immigrants, still here, old women and men, young parents and children. Haitian Creole was spoken quietly, intermittently. In the corner of the room there were household items, food and water and diapers and paper towels.

Nearly everyone sat in silence, looking down, eyes fixed on phones. Some were watching TikToks to pass the time. Others were scanning QR codes and filling out forms. “Now Hiring” flashed on one man’s screen as he scrolled. He stopped, and his finger hovered as he looked at the link. But on July 27, when the Department of Homeland Security revoked temporary protected status for the 300,000 Haitians living in the United States, it had canceled work permits, along with permission to live in the country legally. So he kept scrolling.

James Fleurijean, the center’s office assistant and interpreter, paced back and forth from the main room to his small side office, fielding questions. Fleurijean had initially come to Springfield enticed by a recruitment bonus from Amazon.

Almost nobody was allowed to work anymore, which meant they needed money for rent, food assistance, and more. Their driver’s licenses were no longer valid, so they needed transportation, and help getting kids to and from school. Basically everything. And even if they could work, or drive, or leave the house, there was fear of getting picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sent to detention centers, and deported to Haiti.

This afternoon was mostly about arranging rides, which departed Springfield every weekday morning. Some people had been summoned two hours away to ICE offices in Cincinnati, or Blue Ash, to submit to tracking devices. Some were summoned three hours away to court hearings in Cleveland, the date and time of which changed frequently. The penalty for missing a court date was automatic deportation, and there was always the risk that one might show up at an ICE facility and be arrested anyway, but still they showed up. Now letters had been arriving mandating children as young as 4 years old to report to ICE facilities to set up monitoring. “They don’t have a choice,” Fleurijean said. “They are compliant to the law.”

I sat in the plastic folding chair in the office, across from Fleurijean’s desk, where a few weeks prior, a 20-year-old named Pierre Damas Bel had sat, asking for help. Bel, who graduated from Springfield High in May, had been fitted with an ankle monitor just before his freshman year of college. Usually, those devices were saved for heads of households, and not appended to youths and minors. “He was very young to have it,” Fleurijean said. Bel had visited the ICE facility in Cincinnati multiple times, hoping to get it off, but had no luck.

Bel had agreed to talk to the New York Times about the situation, he told........

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