Tag: people

Ohio ICE detentions soar in Trump’s second term

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Ohio ICE detentions soar in Trump’s second term

The number of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Ohio soared by nearly sixfold last year, according to a new analysis.

The analysis also found that detainees are moved around frequently and often to faraway places, making it difficult for them to maintain contact with legal counsel and families.

And despite President Donald Trump’s claim that his immigration crackdown was aimed at “the worst of the worst,” less than 5% of those detained had been convicted of violent offenses, the report said.

The Ohio Immigrant Alliance analyzed ICE data that had been obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and processed by the Deportation Data Project.

It found that while 117 people were detained in Ohio on the average day in 2024, that number soared to 656 in 2025 — the first year of Trump’s second administration. During the same period, the number of local jails under contract with the federal government to hold ICE detainees tripled from two to six.

The analysis also found that people were detained for weeks and that detainees were moved frequently. That could cause them to lose jobs — in addition to making it hard to stay in touch with their families and their lawyers.

For example, 535 detainees were moved from the Butler County Jail in Hamilton to a detention facility in Alexandria, La., the report said.

“The findings reveal a detention system defined by frequent transfers, relatively short detention periods for many individuals, and a detained population overwhelmingly composed of people without major criminal convictions,” it said. “Across all cases analyzed, the average length of stay was 55.71 days, while the median was 30.68 days, indicating that most individuals spend weeks in county jails and federal facilities before their cases are resolved.”

The report added that the Ohio jails act as an entry point to a system from which detainees might find it difficult — if not impossible — to escape.

“These patterns point to a highly networked federal detention infrastructure in which Ohio’s facilities function as intake and transfer nodes within a much larger national system, with long-distance pipelines connecting Ohio facilities to staging centers in Louisiana, Texas, and elsewhere — effectively isolating detained individuals from their families and legal counsel,” it said.

Immigrant advocates have taken legal action to keep detainees out of that system.

In March, the ACLU of Ohio sued the federal government, arguing that ICE habitually violated the law and its own rules by arresting people without warrants — and without doing anything to determine whether the person was a flight risk.

And earlier this month, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that immigrants who had long been in the United States were entitled to a bond hearing. If such immigrants can raise bonds, they can stay out of the detention system at least temporarily.

The three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based appellate court upheld federal courts sitting in Michigan.

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Source: ohiocapitaljournal.com
Author: Marty Schladen

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May 22, 2026
13,000 more Ohioans to lose food stamps for not meeting requirements under Trump law

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13,000 more Ohioans to lose food stamps for not meeting requirements under Trump law

Two children help their mother pick up food from the Sugartree Ministry food bank in Wilmington, Ohio. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services on April 30 notified 12,988 people that their federal nutrition assistance will end because they hadn’t complied with new requirements under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law was passed last summer by congressional Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump.

The terminations come after 80,000 Ohioans lost benefits between the July passage of the law and January of this year. An advocacy group said it’s likely that older Ohioans are likely the hardest hit by the latest cuts.

The new requirements were imposed as part of a Trump law that cut federal nutrition and healthcare benefits by more than $1 trillion over 10 years while cutting taxes on the richest 1% of Americans by a similar amount. It also added more than $4 trillion to the federal deficit.

A large portion of the cuts to programs for the poor are being done through new work requirements.

While similar requirements for Medicaid don’t take effect until after the November midterm elections, the requirements to get benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, took effect on Feb. 1.

“Under the new law, adults ages 55 to 64 and parents with children 14-18, as well as veterans, homeless individuals, and individuals aging out of the foster system are no longer exempted from work requirements,” Tom Betti, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said in an email.

“These generally require working at least 80 hours per month or pursuing certain educational or training opportunities.”

About 1.4 million Ohioans receive benefits under SNAP, which is available to households with incomes below 130% of the federal poverty level.

In Ohio, that’s less than $36,000. Benefits are just $6.28 per person, per day.

Even before the cuts, the benefits weren’t reaching many eligible residents.

In Ohio in 2023, SNAP benefits were going to 95.5% of people at 100% of the federal poverty level — even though everybody making 130% or less was eligible.

But penetration of the benefit is declining further under the new requirements — which ostensibly address a problem of questionable existence.

An analysis of census data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that in 2015, more than half of able-bodied adult SNAP recipients worked in the month they received benefits. And in 89% of households with children and a non-disabled adult, someone had worked in the previous two years.

That’s not bad among people who tend to work low-wage jobs that often lack health benefits, sick days and paid leave, the analysis said.

Critics have said the work requirements weren’t imposed to put lazy people to work, but to achieve savings by hassling otherwise-eligible people off the system. Real-world experience seems to support that.

When Arkansas in 2018 experimented with Medicaid work requirements, it didn’t produce the outcome proponents said they wanted. The mandate created confusion, 18,000 residents lost coverage, and the state’s employment level was unchanged, the Urban Institute reported last year.

In Ohio, the new losses of food benefits are expected to land heaviest on people between 55 and 64, who previously were exempt from work requirements.

Policy Matters Ohio last week reported that half of the 1,350 people in Cuyahoga County losing benefits are over 55. That’s the only county it had data for, but Executive Director Hannah Halbert cited some reasons why older recipients are especially vulnerable.

“These federal changes include requiring Ohioans over the age of 54 to work, or qualify for poorly reasoned, narrow exemptions with criteria that may be difficult to prove,” she said in a written statement.

“That includes seniors ages 60-64, unless they are pregnant, living with another person under the age of 14 who is qualified for assistance, or an ‘Indian, Urban Indian, or California Indian.’“

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May 13, 2026
Ohio’s most populous county sees 43% increase in unsheltered homelessness, according to report

Ohio’s most populous county sees 43% increase in unsheltered homelessness, according to report

File photo by Paul Bradbury/Getty Images.

Franklin County’s annual Point-in-Time Count identified 2,587 people experiencing homelessness — a 1.2% increase from 2025.

Sheltered homelessness decreased by 8% with 165 fewer people in emergency shelters and transitional housing, but unsheltered homelessness increased 43% — from 455 in 2025 to 651 in 2026, according to the point-in-time count.

“We’re seeing more people forced to live outside in encampments and cars and places that are never meant for human habitation,” said Columbus City Councilmember Tiara Ross.

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Point-in-Time counts are one-night estimates of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness that are conducted nationwide in partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Franklin County’s count took place in January.

“If people are outside on our cold days, then what we suspect is that that is an under count,” said Community Shelter Board President and CEO Shannon TL Isom.

“There’s even more people that are outside on our cold days.”

Last year’s point-in-time count took place during a storm, which Isom said is part of the reason why there was an increase in unsheltered homelessness this year.

“When we were counting, it was during a winter storm last year … and we were able, because of hotels and motels, to have people gathered, so we ended up counting them as sheltered when, otherwise, like this year, they would have been outside,” Isom said.

Franklin County is projected to see a 68% increase in unsheltered homelessness by 2028.

“We know from both local data and predictive modeling that without additional investment, you will see this trend continue … and that’s a hard truth that we have to sit and grapple with,” Ross said.

Chronic homelessness increased 16.4% and people with severe mental illness experiencing homelessness increased 42%, according to the report.

People experiencing homelessness with HIV/AIDS increased 75%, people with chronic substance use experiencing homelessness increased 53%, and survivors of domestic violence experiencing homelessness increased 32%, according to the report.

Family homelessness went down 3.8%, parenting youth homelessness decreased by 40% and no parenting youth were identified as unsheltered, according to the report.

“You will not see children in Franklin County ever unsheltered, we immediately have flex space for that,” Isom said.

There were 96 veterans experiencing homelessness, one less than last year, according to the report.

A little more than half of people experiencing homelessness were men (58%), 41% were women, and 1% is non-binary. 54% of people experiencing homelessness were Black, 33% were white, 9% were multi-racial, and 1% were Hispanic, according to the report.

Franklin County is Ohio’s most populous county with 1,356,303 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“There is no debate that our city is on an upward trajectory, but that does not mean that everybody is able to participate in that upward trajectory,” said Michael Wilkos, chair of the Columbus and Franklin County Continuum of Care.

People living in Franklin County need to be making at least $27.79 an hour working a full-time job to be able to afford a “modest” two-bedroom apartment — more than $5 higher than the state average, according to a report last year by Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio and the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The Community Shelter Board and the Columbus and Franklin County Continuum of Care recommend expanding housing-focused system-funded street outreach. Franklin County currently has four outreach workers.

They want to scale up hotel options as a bridge toward permanent housing. 44 people living outside moved into permanent housing from Dec. 1, 2025 to March 31 with Winter Warming Center funding.

Hotel use year-round would permanently house 200-300 unsheltered people experiencing homelessness.

“It is imperative that we have housing as the solution, not just sheltering,” Isom said. “People in this community should be able to skip over a shelter bed to get into housing.”

The Community Shelter Board and the Continuum of Care wants to get three hotel-based non-congregate shelter sites, which could reduce family homelessness by 48% by 2028.

“We know that diversion programs that prevent people from entering shelter in the first place works,” Ross said. “We know that rapid re-housing moves individuals and families quickly back into stable housing works. We know that permanent, supportive housing that pairs housing with services for those with highest needs work.”

There were 11,759 people experiencing homelessness in Ohio in 2024, according to the latest U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Homelessness Assessment Report.

Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on X or on Bluesky.

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May 11, 2026