OPINION:
Rural American communities are being overwhelmed by the Biden-Harris administration’s illegal immigration crisis. Springfield, Ohio; Charleroi, Pennsylvania; and small towns in western Wisconsin are among the many reeling from this unprecedented wave.
We can add Logansport, Indiana, to the list.
In a recent report from the Indianapolis TV station Fox 59, the city of 18,000 people is dealing with an influx of some 5,000 aliens, a 28% population increase. Mayor Chris Martin said that some public sectors, particularly schools, are seeing 20% and 30% increases in population.
Unaccompanied alien children, known as UACs, make up a significant portion of the new arrivals in Logansport, straining the city’s schools. Some haven’t seen their parents in years, according to Cass County Health Administrator Serenity Alter.
There were 14 Haitian students in Logansport in 2021. Now there are 207, though not all the new students are UACs. This increase of nearly 1,400% in three years also doesn’t count the students from 11 other countries who are new this year.
Under the Biden administration, an average of 1,776 UACs have been released into Indiana each fiscal year from fiscal 2021 to this past August. Under the Trump administration, an average of 441 UACs were released into Indiana each fiscal year.
Teachers and American children are suffering from the consequences of President Biden’s open-border policy. Most migrant children lack English proficiency, forcing teachers to accommodate them and making it tougher to manage a classroom and instruct other students.
Nancy Baker, mother of a 16-year-old former Logansport High School student, said students began to fall behind as more attention was given to the new, foreign students. Her daughter left the school because she wasn’t receiving adequate instruction due to the influx of students who don’t speak English.
With American students already struggling in the classroom because of the COVID-19 pandemic response, the extra strain put on schools to accommodate unprecedented numbers of migrant children only depletes school resources more, further impeding American children’s education.
Haitians are in the U.S. because of the current administration’s policy, the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan parole program — which has been suspended amid fraud concerns — and accompanying unlawful work authorization, or because the administration repeatedly extends protection from deportation under the temporary protected status program. Some Haitians in Logansport are reportedly under TPS, which comes with statutory work authorization.
A Haitian immigrant who initially moved to Logansport around 2020 to work at the Tyson meatpacking plant there said that other aliens are moving to Logansport for the same reason.
In 2022, Tyson Foods financially committed to support aliens in partnership with Immigrant Connection and Arkansas Immigrant Defense, both nongovernmental organizations, through their Tyson Immigration Partnership program. The program provides legal services to aliens so they will be on the path to citizenship.
Because of companies such as Tyson Foods extending attractive benefits for noncitizens and NGOs facilitating the illegal-immigration crisis, communities that aren’t equipped to handle an influx of aliens suffer from lack of notice, resources and infrastructure.
Indiana and other states should pass legislation prohibiting business licenses for organizations involved in facilitating illegal migration. In addition, states should prohibit the use of any state and local taxes from funding immigration layers and NGOs providing legal representation for aliens. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for either an alien’s immigration application or removal proceedings.
The Biden administration’s mass parole policies and extending and expanding TPS have facilitated mass migration into rural communities that can’t handle such an influx.
Springfield, Charleroi and Logansport aren’t isolated cases, and they won’t be the last if President-elect Donald Trump doesn’t swiftly reverse these policies.
• Erin Schniederjan is a research assistant for homeland security and Asian studies in border security & immigration at The Heritage Foundation.
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