Residents from another midwestern town, this time in Indiana, say city resources are being strained and their children put last due to a sudden influx of migrants from Haiti.
Thousands of new migrants, hailing mostly from Haiti, are now living in Logansport, Indiana, a town with a population of just 18,000. Though local officials say they have not been given any answers on just how many migrants have moved in, estimates range from 3,000 to 5,000 Haitians. The surrounding areas have seen an influx as well, with an estimated 11,000 new migrants county-wide.
Logansport Mayor Chris Martin has said that there are “assimilation issues” related to culture, according to a report from the New York Post.
In one instance, a resident named Nancy Baker told the Post that her 16-year-old daughter was chased by migrants after she rebuffed their calls to walk over to them while she was on her way to a nearby coffee shop.
Another resident, 32-year-old Candice Espinoza, said migrants routinely stare into her windows while she’s home, holding up their phones, potentially recording her.
“It’s not safe. They just stare at you and won’t talk to you,” she told the Post. “They stand there staring at my house with cameras on their phones. I don’t know if they’re recording, what they’re doing.”
“You don’t feel easy when someone is constantly watching you,” Espinoza added.
Additionally, resources are now significantly strained. The number of Haitian migrant students in Logansport schools has increased 15-fold since 2021. Teachers are having to spend increased time with these new students because of the language barrier. Baker says her daughter dropped out of public school to take the rest of her classes online.
“She quit. She’s in online school now,” Baker said. “Nobody was getting the attention that they needed. It’s way too many kids, and it seemed to her that because they didn’t speak the language and didn’t understand what was going on, they were getting more attention.”
Baker said she’s frustrated that her daughter’s school is spending most of its resources on “one group of children,” while “everybody else is falling behind.”
In January of 2023, the Biden-Harris administration launched a new program that allowed more than 200,000 Haitians to be paroled into the U.S. Additionally, over the summer, the administration granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to more than 300,000 Haitian migrants, who are now permitted to stay in the U.S. until at least February of 2026, even if they entered the country illegally.
It’s unclear how so many migrants are ending up in small towns in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. However, there does seem to be a connection between nonprofits that are resettling migrants and businesses looking for labor.
A report from FOX59 and CBS4 connected Haitian migrants in Logansport to Tyson Foods, a meatpacking plant. The report noted that Tyson did not respond when they were asked about how many migrants, particularly young migrants, are working for them in the city. Notably, Haitian teens are reportedly working shifts to help their families while also attending school.
Tyson made headlines back in May when a conservative nonprofit called America First Legal asked the Department of Justice to investigate the company over its employment practices concerning migrants. AFL said Tyson employs 42,000 foreign workers — more than a third of its U.S. workforce — and is also involved in programs to recruit more migrants.
Tyson has strongly denied discriminating against American workers for migrants and said all their workers are legal.
In Springfield, Ohio, another town inundated with migrants from Haiti, manufacturing and packing plant jobs opened up and businesses welcomed and encouraged the flow of migrants to fill labor needs. Businesses and nonprofits also seem to be a key reason for a migrant influx in Charleroi, Pennsylvania.
It’s estimated that about 20,000 Haitian migrants over the past few years have moved into Springfield, which had a population of just 60,000 people. Charleroi has seen a 2,000% increase in its immigration population.
Residents and officials from the towns say there’s been an increase in traffic violations and car accidents, resources at schools and local law enforcement are strained, housing has become more scarce, and residents are struggling overall with the lack of assimilation from the newcomers.
