Ohio AG eyes ‘creative’ path to get ‘mishandled’ Springfield migrant crisis in front of federal judge

Ohio’s Republican attorney general is blasting the federal government over the developing migrant crisis in Springfield, Ohio, and says his office has begun the process of trying to get the issue in front of a federal judge.

“I’ve asked my staff to take a look at the law and put their creative hats on to see if there’s a way we can get in front of a federal judge to review this situation,” Ohio AG Dave Yost told Fox News Digital during an interview. “I mean, think about this. If it could happen to Springfield, it could happen to any town in America. There has to be some kind of limit to the federal government’s authority to simply continue letting people in and allowing them to run free in the country and congregate in a place like Springfield that’s not prepared to handle it.”

Yost told Fox News Digital that the federal government has “completely mishandled” Springfield, where between 15,000 and 20,000 Haitian migrants have settled in the town of 60,000 and many of those migrants have come to the U.S. with temporary protected status, allowing them the ability to live and work in the U.S. for a limited amount of time.

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Yost says the federal government has not properly coordinated resettling those migrants with the town and it is therefore “stressing the schools, the health care system, and the safety net” and said that at least 4,000 Haitians are receiving government assistance.

“What I’m hearing from the people of Springfield is, first of all, we need help with our town as it’s not set up to take 20,000 people to stay here for a long time,” Yost said. “And I understand that there’s also some frustration in the city because they’re goodhearted people, they’ve tried to be kind, they’ve tried to be supportive of folks that are clearly fleeing a terrible situation in Haiti, but they feel like they’re being left to handle it on their own and I don’t blame them.”

Fox News Digital asked Yost what he hopes the federal government will do in the future to avoid issues like this. 

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“Well, for starters, they need to keep track of people once they’re in the country,” Yost said. “The notion that we’re going to release somebody on a temporary basis, whether that’s on parole or temporary protection or whatever bureaucratic ‘gobblese’ they’re using this week, they ought to know where these folks are, make sure that they can get to court on their court date and if they’re not supposed to be here, that they can be sent home.”

“I don’t see any evidence that they know that. If they do know that, they’re not sharing it with local communities who need to know to be able to plan their response. I would argue, though, that there has to be a limiting principle. What if they just decided that the 8 to 12, I mean, estimates vary, but there’s millions of people that came into the country in the last four years,” Yost continued. “Can you just put all of them in Ohio and basically double our population? There has to be a limiting principle here. And we’re looking for a way to get this in front of the court.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response.

Fox News Digital’s Michael Lee contributed to this report