Migrant surge pushes children out of schools in small Indiana city

Population of Logansport has increased by 30pc in four years putting pressure on education and healthcare

Children have been pushed out of schools, and hospitals have been left overcrowded after a surge of migrants into a remote city in Indiana, residents claim.
The population of Logansport has increased by 30 per cent since 2021 following a wave of migrants, Chris Martin, the city’s mayor,  told the Pharos-Tribune.
That would put the number of migrants arriving at more than 5,000, in a county that had a population of just 18,000 people in 2020, according to census data.
At the same time, the number of Haitian immigrant students in the Logansport schools has increased 15-fold, from 14 in 2021 to 207 this year, according to the New York Post.
It is understood that migrants have been drawn to the central Indiana city for jobs at a local meat-packing plant.
However, their rapid arrival has put the city’s health and education system under strain, with parents claiming they have been forced to pull their children from school to stop them from falling behind.
Nancy Baker, 44, a mother of two, said that her 16-year-old daughter, Cheyanne, dropped out of high school because teachers did not have enough time for the English-speaking pupils.
“There were way too many kids and it seemed to her that since they didn’t speak the language, or didn’t understand what was going on, they were getting more attention,” she told the New York Post.
“And so she and the other kids who grew up here who were having issues or struggling in certain things weren’t able to get the attention that they needed — the help they needed from the school.”
Barrie McClian, a retired teacher, said public schools and healthcare centres had been “impacted terribly” by the surge in arrivals.
“They have to figure out how to educate all these folks, without having anybody who knows how to translate for a lot of the languages. So those are big problems,” he told Mail Online.
The influx of outsiders to the town has also raised concerns over safety, with Ms Baker claiming her daughter is scared to leave the house after being chased by a group of migrants.
“She was walking by herself and she was walking that way and two of them were going this way, she just kinda smiled at them as they walked by. They started yelling for her after they got past her. She turned around and she looked at them and they were like, ‘Come here! Come here!’” Ms Baker told the Post.
She added that her daughter had to run down the street to a coffee shop and was now “scared to go outside”.
Meanwhile, local health officials have raised concerns that the rapid influx of migrants is placing emergency rooms under strain.
“This surge has created a drastic climb in medical visits,” Serenity Alter, Cass County health department administrator, told The Post.
“It has been necessary for the hospital, health department and express clinics to boost translation services in order to ensure that medical needs are understood.”
The city is the latest flashpoint in the debate around immigration that is proving to be one of the most divisive issues in the lead up to the election.
It comes after Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance drew attention to Springfield, Ohio, where the former president claimed without evidence that illegal Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs.
Analysis
The Republican candidate has also highlighted problems with immigration in Aurora, Colorado, where he alleged armed members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua have overrun the town.
Logansport residents voiced their concerns about the city’s response to the impact of legal immigration during a meeting of the city council last Monday, with some calling on the Republican mayor to resign.
Attendees also claimed the city’s services were being impacted, with one stating that “rents are high” and that schools and the police department are overwhelmed, Fox 59 reported.
The mayor admitted there had been “some assimilation issues” from the arrival of people with “different culture beliefs” but called on politicians to “stop playing politics” with the town.
“We would rather you do your job and actually do something instead of talking about this,” Mr Martin told The Post.