The Dayton Daily News Making Dayton Home series has shown how immigrants to the Dayton region have benefited the community. They have brought with them investment — establishing businesses and churches — helped fill workforce needs and enhanced the region’s culture.
This story looks at how federal policy changes are making it harder for immigrants to legally make Dayton home.
Earlier this month, local immigrants who went through the entire process to become U.S. citizens reportedly had their naturalization ceremony canceled after they showed up at the courthouse because of the countries they were from.
Last month, Trump ordered a “pause” on asylum claims after the Nov. 26 shooting of two National Guard members in Washington D.C., allegedly carried out by an Afghan immigrant.
Such a pause could have changed the life course of Dayton resident Martha-Jeannette Rodriguez, whose family’s journey from Colombia was a decision made out of fear for their safety.
A man who had claimed to be a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — one of the larger guerrilla groups in Latin America — was demanding a monthly ransom payment after the kidnapping of Rodriquez’s father-in-law. Rodriguez’s family did not have the money to give to the man.
“The man then threatened my family by revealing details about my children’s routines, where they went and their activities, implying that harm could come to them if we didn’t comply,” Rodriguez said. “This was a case of extortion, and it compelled us to leave Colombia for safety reasons.”
Rodriguez’s family came to Dayton in the early 2000s on tourist visas to connect with relatives in Ohio. They applied for asylum, showing immigration officials paperwork related to her father-in-law’s kidnapping, reports from the Gaula military division that assists families of kidnapping victims and letters of recommendation from their church and schools.
She recalls this time being stressful: if their application wasn’t approved before their tourist visas expired, they would be at risk of having to return to a dangerous situation in Colombia.
Their asylum application was approved a day before their visas were set to expire in 2004.
“We come here seeking safety, stability and better opportunities for our families,” Rodriguez said. She is now an employee of Welcome Dayton, which helps immigrants in their transition to a new life in Montgomery County.
Immigration policy
In a Thanksgiving day post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that stopping migration from “Third World Countries” is needed " to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country."
He also vowed to end federal benefits to noncitizens and “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump’s post concluded.
Freezing asylum proceedings impacts about 1.5 million cases that are before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but reportedly will not impact millions of others still pending in immigration courts across the country.
At Trump’s direction, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has suspended applications for green cards, citizenship or asylum from 19 countries and is considering expanding the existing travel ban to include 30 nations.
One of the 19 countries is the Democratic Republic of Congo — Dayton has a large Congolese population, including a church congregation in Huber Heights.
Credit: David Sherman, Video Producer • Sydney Dawes, Reporter
The federal government also approved canceling or bumping up the timelines for temporary legal statuses that thousands of Ohio’s documented immigrants use to reside and work in the state. And with the passage of the reconciliation bill, $170 billion was approved for immigration enforcement.
This is endangering the ability for thousands of Haitians in the region, particularly in Springfield, to continue legally living and working in the area.
“It’s definitely caused a lot of uncertainty,” said Heather Campbell, an attorney at ABLE Law about recent changes to immigration policy.
ABLE provides legal services to lower- or restricted-income families and has multiple programs that serve immigrants coming to Ohio.
“It’s caused a lot of frustration for people who did what they were supposed to do initially and followed the lawful pathways that were set out for them,” she said.
Immigration process
Data sheds light on how the legal process works for immigrants coming to the U.S.:
- Refugees: Congress and the president can determine annually how many refugees are permitted to enter the country. In 2024, the Migration Policy Institute estimates that a little more than 100,000 refugees were admitted. In the 2025 fiscal year, roughly 27,000 refugees were admitted to the U.S. before the pause of the refugee resettlement program.
- Asylum cases: More than 4 million asylum cases are pending in the U.S.
- Immigration courts: There are 71 immigration courts in the U.S., with Ohio’s being in Cleveland. Roughly 700 immigration judges oversee these cases.
- Visas: Visas grant noncitizens permission to stay in the U.S. under a specific set of circumstances — tourism, employment, education and other scenarios — and timeframe. Of the 11.5 million visas issued in fiscal year 2024, 8.5 million were visitor (non-immigrant) visas, according to the U.S. State Department.
- Green cards: Roughly 1 million green cards are issued in the U.S. annually — the majority of which are issued to the immediate relatives and spouses of citizens, according to the National Immigration Forum.
Refugees
The term “refugee” is an immigration designation given to a person who fled their native country and whose application for protection was approved by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Hundreds of refugees in Montgomery County came through a federal program that was halted in January.
According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the state welcomed 4,312 refugees in 2024 to several cities — 456 were resettled in the Dayton area, primarily representing the Democratic Republic of Congo but also including people from Sudan, Afghanistan and Eritrea.
Refugees have reshaped parts of Dayton. The relocation of Ahiska Turks fleeing persecution in Russia revitalized Old North Dayton. Turkish families have started businesses and invested in local communities.
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Catholic Social Services of the Miami Valley is contracted for refugee resettlement services in the Dayton region. The executive order that paused resettlement operations across the country impacted the nonprofit’s operations significantly, but Catholic Social Services continues to provide support services to refugees who arrived before the program’s pause, said Executive Director Laura Roesch.
Existing services for immigrants served by Catholic Social Services include employment-based services that are available to refugees up to five years after their arrival.
“That’s case management to remove barriers to employment, support around resumes and job application assistance, and then programming to support English language skills and job skill development,” Roesch said. “And even those soft skills, like understanding the nuances of the American workplace.”
Priorities for who can enter the nation as a refugee are also changing. The Trump administration capped refugee admissions for this fiscal year at 7,500 — the lowest level in history.
Those slots will be mostly allocated to Afrikaners, whom the Trump administration alleges have faced discrimination in South Africa for being white, and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands,” according to the administration. The South African government has challenged claims that Afrikaners are being persecuted.
Roesch said her nonprofit partners with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for its resettlement work. That national organization terminated its agreement with the federal government after the resettlement program paused, so Afrikaners will not be resettled to the Dayton area through Catholic Social Services.
It’s unclear if refugees will be admitted to the country at all this fiscal year, Roesch said.
“We wish we had a crystal ball. But we’ll wait and see if public policy opens back up in a way that we can re-engage with the resettlement work,” she said.
Humanitarian parole, TPS
Humanitarian parole allows immigrants to temporarily enter the U.S. for urgent humanitarian reasons. It is not a path to a permanent status but can lead to more permanent solutions, like applying for asylum or a green card.
Humanitarian parole for many Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan immigrants ended earlier this year, a change that “threw a ton of people for a loop,” Campbell said.
“And as soon as that parole status was revoked, their employment eligibility was gone,” Campbell said. “So a lot of people essentially lost their jobs, very unexpectedly, unable to provide for themselves and their families, not prepared in any way to deal with that. They thought they had at least a couple of years to make longer-term plans.”
Campbell said legal clinics in Springfield and Dayton are fielding numerous questions from immigrants about the end to their humanitarian parole designations and Temporary Protected Status.
TPS was originally scheduled to expire for thousands of local Haitian immigrants in August 2026. The Trump administration moved that deadline forward to February.
In recent months, those clinics have seen at least 10 new families asking what other options exist for their families to legally stay in the U.S.
“People want to know what their options are. They’ve either built a life or were in the process of building a life in a community here. And they want to be able to maintain those ties. For some, it’s the first place they’ve ever felt safe,” she said.
For those families, Campbell said options exist. But they are limited. Immigrants who are the victims of a crime, for example, could be eligible for other legal pathways besides TPS or humanitarian parole.
For many cases, ABLE is helping immigrants apply for asylum, but recent changes mean that may not alleviate their risk of deportation.
Asylum
People from other nations can apply for asylum at the U.S. border or when they’re already inside the country — and applicants must be physically present in the U.S. and prove they have a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinions and other factors.
Many immigrants apply for asylum while they’re in the U.S. on a tourist visa, which can be granted to a passport holder for up to six months.
Rodriguez called her asylum case “a miracle,” as some cases remain pending for several years. The National Immigration Forum estimates that cases that go before USCIS have a more than six-year wait time in most states.
Campbell said her organization has adapted to several changes to the asylum process laid out in The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by Trump this summer. This includes new fees for asylum cases, some of which are suspended.
“For people who lost their employment because of their parole status being revoked or termination of TPS ending and employers not wanting to keep people on whose employment eligibility was uncertain, the financial ability to cover that fee is basically non-existent,” said Campbell.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Federal officials like U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem this year have suggested immigrants who have pending asylum cases may be at risk of deportation.
‘Valuable contributions’
Campbell said changes this year differ from the policy implemented by previous federal administrations. They also create a sense of fear among immigrants who are pursuing legal channels to stay in the United States.
“It makes it harder for people to feel like they are going to get the rights that they are entitled to, if they’re being treated like a criminal from the beginning. It doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the system,” Campbell said.
Rodriguez feels effective immigration policy can not be without empathy.
“It’s important for policies to be compassionate and supportive, recognizing the valuable contributions immigrants make to our region’s diversity and growth,” she said.
Decades have passed since the tumultuous events that brought Rodriguez to the United States. But she said Dayton is now — and will forever be — home.
“I wish more people understood the strength, resilience and contributions of immigrants,” she said. “Despite the challenges, we work hard to build new lives and give back to our communities.”
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