SPRINGFIELD, OH, March 16, 2026 — Free Speech For People, a national nonpartisan legal advocacy organization, today issued a letter urging the Prosecuting Attorney of Clark County, Ohio, to prepare for a possible surge of illegal ICE activity. Specifically, Free Speech For People has asked the Prosecuting Attorney to ensure that residents can safely report crimes committed by federal agents, and to be prepared to investigate and prosecute those crimes. The likelihood of a surge—and all the violence that has accompanied these surges elsewhere in the country—is high: the Trump administration is attempting to revoke Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for the county’s large Haitian community. If successful, Free Speech For People’s letter says, the government will almost certainly engage in an immigration surge similar to the ones it has executed in California, Illinois, Minnesota, Maine, and elsewhere.

Right now, TPS provides important legal protections to certain immigrants who are legally present in the country, have not been convicted of felonies or multiple misdemeanors, and whose home country is unsafe to return to—including the ten to fifteen thousand Haitian-born residents of the Springfield, Ohio area. A federal district court has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to strip Haitian immigrants of these protections, having found that the administration did not follow proper procedures and was largely motivated by racial animus. But the Supreme Court is now considering an emergency petition from the Trump administration to stay the district court’s ruling. If the government is successful, Haitian immigrants will lose their legal status overnight.

“There is every indication that the Trump administration will order violent immigration raids in Springfield, which will leave the city’s residents—immigrant and citizen alike—vulnerable to abuses by federal agents,” said Courtney Hostetler, Legal Director for Free Speech For People. “Ohio officials must be prepared to protect its residents from such abuses, and to apply its own criminal laws fairly, without regard to how powerful the perpetrator may be.”

Though the administration claims that its immigration enforcement efforts are aimed at the “worst of the worst,” the Haitians protected by TPS, by definition, never committed serious crimes. Trump’s own remarks demonstrate that these actions are designed to intimidate political opponents and terrorize communities of color rather than any coherent law enforcement objective.

“Local authorities have the power to enforce state criminal laws against federal agents and officials who violate them if their actions are either unauthorized or unnecessary,” said Ben Clements, Chairman and Senior Legal Advisor at Free Speech For People and a former federal prosecutor. “That includes officials who gave the orders, including the President himself.”

Free Speech For People emphasizes that while federal prosecutors have been compromised by the administration’s own misconduct, state and local authorities retain independent jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute crimes committed within their borders.

“The ongoing attempted cover-ups of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the shooting of Marimar Martinez, among others, demonstrate the complete unwillingness of this administration to investigate its officers’ unlawful actions,” said Ben Horton, Counsel at Free Speech For People. “Local officials are one of the only remaining sources of accountability, and local officials in Ohio should prepare accordingly.”

Read the letter here.

This letter is part of Free Speech For People’s nationwide campaign to demand that state and local officials apply their criminal laws to the illegal actions of federal agents, and to protect their communities from violence perpetrated by immigration officers and orchestrated by Trump and his administration. Read more about the campaign here.