President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents may be poised to target the Ohio city where Trump, then a candidate in 2024, falsely insisted that Haitian immigrants were eating the pets of residents.

Local officials are bracing for a 30-day ICE surge, The New Republic reported.

“Springfield City School District Superintendent Bob Hill said that local officials had discussed the likelihood that federal immigration authorities could descend on the city sometime after Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants expires on February 3,” TNR noted, citing a report from the Springfield News-Sun.

Superintendent Hill suggested there was no evidence that immigration enforcement would take place on school property.

Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine led a meeting last week in which he “discussed that a federal immigration enforcement initiative may begin sometime after the TPS deadline,” the News-Sun reported.

READ MORE: Trump Promised a ‘More Relaxed’ Minnesota Approach—Bondi Scorched for Doing the Opposite

Details are fluid, DeWine spokesperson Dan Tierney noted, and he “said there has not been ‘formal communication’ of actions by ICE or any immigration authority.”

“We are dealing with hypotheticals right now. It would be very imprudent to give people guidance on a fluid situation based upon hypotheticals,” Tierney said.

Pam Shay, director of federal programs at Springfield City Schools said that about 20 percent of the district’s 1,400 students do not have documents indicating citizenship.

The News-Sun also reported that immigrants granted Temporary Protected Status “will no longer have status unless they sought and received another form of protection, like asylum.”

In 2024, Trump infamously declared, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs.”

“The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” candidate Trump said at a presidential debate.

The claim had already been debunked, including by city officials, as ABC News reported at the time.

READ MORE: ‘Piling Lie Upon Lie’: CNN Fact-Checker Torches Trump’s Iowa Claims

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President Donald Trump said that Americans would see a de-escalation in Minnesota, and a “more relaxed” approach on the ground in Minneapolis after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in under three weeks. But Attorney General Pam Bondi’s messaging on Wednesday pointed in a different direction.

In a social media post Wednesday afternoon, the attorney general wrote:

“MINNESOTA ARRESTS — I am on the ground in Minneapolis today. Federal agents have arrested 16 Minnesota rioters for allegedly assaulting federal law enforcement — people who have been resisting and impeding our federal law enforcement agents.”

“We expect more arrests to come,” she added, appearing to suggest the arrests would target Americans who are protesting, rather than undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.

READ MORE: ‘Piling Lie Upon Lie’: CNN Fact-Checker Torches Trump’s Iowa Claims

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: NOTHING will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law.”

Bondi then posted the names of the people who were arrested, and, in many cases, photos of them standing next to federal officers, who had their backs to the camera. It was unclear why they were identified as “rioters.”

Critics slammed the attorney general.

“They’re not arresting the people responsible for the murders of Renée Nicole Good or Alex Pretti,” wrote author and activist Lev Parnas. “No — they’re arresting Minnesota citizens and using them as props for a headline. Enough is enough. We need accountability. We need justice. And we are not backing down.”

“No deal on ICE,” political commentator Keith Olbermann wrote to U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI). “Bondi is boasting that they’re rounding up protestors there now.”

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“It will be interesting to see if these actually hold up in court — DOJ track record under Bondi has not been good,” noted The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg.

CNN’s Aaron Blake appeared to concur, writing, “the Trump admin has repeatedly accused people of assaulting law enforcement — but then either not actually brought charges or seen the cases crumble.”

“There ain’t no walk back,” declared The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol, appearing to invoke the president’s call for de-escalation.”They’re still all in on mass deportation and mass intimidation.”

“Could we see some video of the ‘assaults’ you allege?” asked U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY). “Nobody believes you or your partisan DOJ — which is focused on protestors not ICE murderers.”

READ MORE: ‘All Tools Necessary’: GOP Hardliners Press Trump on Insurrection Act

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Kicking off what is expected to be a weekly campaign-style tour of the nation to promote his agenda ahead of the November midterms, President Donald Trump engaged in what CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale described as an “alternative reality” of “piling lie upon lie” for his Iowa audience.

“You know, inflation we’ve solved; it’s done,” Trump told Fox News during the trip to Iowa. “We have it good where prices are coming way down. They were just saying, in Iowa the fuel is $1.95. Did you hear that? Somebody said $1.85. But it was $3.50, $4.50 just a year ago, a year and a half ago. You look at eggs, you look at groceries, it’s all down. Everything’s come down. Do you notice they don’t mention affordability anymore?”

According to Dale, it’s “true” that egg prices have fallen significantly, but the “rest of his narrative was thoroughly inaccurate.”

He continued his fact check: “Inflation is not over; prices continue to rise. Overall prices have gone up, not down. Overall grocery prices have gone up, not down. Iowa’s average gas price is much higher than $1.95. And Democrats have certainly not stopped mentioning affordability; in fact, it remains a key focus of their public remarks.”

READ MORE: Silence Is Deafening From Second Amendment ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ Crowd: Columnist

Dale apparently wasn’t the only one fact-checking gas prices.

“In an unusual moment,” he writes, “Trump was fact-checked on this subject by an attendee at his Iowa speech on Tuesday. When he spoke of gas in Iowa being $1.95 or $1.85 per gallon, someone in the crowd shouted, ‘No, $2.63,’ according to CNN’s Steve Contorno, who was on scene.”

According to Dale, “Overall consumer prices have increased during this presidential term; in December 2025, seasonally adjusted overall prices were 2.2% higher than they were in January 2025, and, again, 2.7% higher than they were in December 2024.”

He also noted that “It’s not true that ‘you look at groceries, it’s all down.’ In fact, the 0.7% increase in the Consumer Price Index for groceries between November 2025 and December 2025 was the biggest month-to-month jump reported in more than three years.”

And he added, “Iowa gas prices are generally much higher than Trump said.”

Trump: You’re not hearing the word affordability anymore because the prices are coming down so much. They don’t want this to be an election based on lower prices. pic.twitter.com/85YZnl3ZIY

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 27, 2026

READ MORE: ‘All Tools Necessary’: GOP Hardliners Press Trump on Insurrection Act

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