Another Midwestern Town Inundated With Haitians
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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