alfie

📍Istanbul, October 2025

(August 14, 2026)

Nearly two years ago, right-wing politicians and media outlets in the U.S. launched a short-lived moral panic around a false claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio were "eating people's pets". Although this panic was met with widespread condemnation from the public, the legal battle it provided momentum for went largely ignored: In June of this year, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of revoking the temporary protected status which previously shielded Haitian migrants from deportation due to high-risk conditions in Haiti.

Now, Haitians living in Springfield are being issued letters ordering them to report to area ICE centers.

“When they do, their passports are collected,” said Carl Ruby, pastor of Springfield’s Central Christian Church.  “They’re fitted with ankle (monitors); I call them ankle shackles.” 

Monitored residents are then told that they will be expected to report back to ICE at regular intervals going forward, with agents reportedly claiming that obedience will result in better treatment.

This is not the first case of this happening to targeted migrant demographics in the United States in recent history:

Many of [Legal Immigration Services'] Brazilian clients in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were asked to start wearing ankle monitors in July 2025. She said they have a 16-year-old client wearing an ankle monitor in Pittsburgh. “It is very embarrassing to wear them,” [paralegal Marqueli] Eldredge said in a text message. “(The) devices cause lesions, rashes and blisters, bleeding on their ankles.”  She said it can be hard for their clients to sleep with the ankle monitors.