OPINION: My apology to Logansport

Last month I wrote about immigration policy (see https://indianaeconomicdigest.net/Content/Default/Major-Indiana-News/Article/OPINION-Indiana-s-small-towns-need-more-immigrants/-3/5308/117435?s=1) and mentioned Logansport, Indiana. I did so because that small Hoosier city is well known as an immigration success story in the Midwest.

Sadly, my column brought unwelcomed coverage of the city. A couple of news stories, (see https://fox59.com/video/logansport-officials-say-immigrant-population-growth-is-unsustainable/10118065/), which may be charitably characterized as indifferent to facts, painted the city as an immigrant hellscape. In one of these, Micah Beckwith called for the deportation of legal immigrants (see https://www.fortwaynepolitics.com/p/audio-micah-beckwith-says-local-leaders/), specifically targeting Haitians for some inexplicable reason.

For what it’s worth, this deportation would be a violation of both the 4th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Having already disavowed the 1st Amendment, it appears he’s working his way through the whole document.

I apologize to the good people of Logansport for stirring a hornets’ nest in this season of hateful lies. I also wish to set the record straight with facts, not conjecture, polemics or ill-researched half-truths. Here are some facts.

Cass County, where Logansport is located, has been subject to three waves of immigration since it was first settled in the 1830s. The first, and largest of these, was a strong wave of German immigration that began shortly before the Civil War and ended in World War I. The second was a Hispanic wave that was much shorter and smaller and peaked a decade ago. The third is an even smaller number of Haitians and Hmong immigrants arriving in recent years.

The vast majority of these immigrants arrived legally and were sponsored to move to Cass County, where they work and make a life.

Ironically, the slowest group to assimilate was the Germans. The last German-language newspaper printed in Cass County closed in 1918, 70 years after the first German immigrants fleeing the European revolts of 1848 arrived in Indiana. As a reminder, the 1848 revolts in Germany were the launching points of international Marxism. The revolts were unsuccessful, so many of the Germans who fled to Cass County were early Marxists sympathizers.

The children of the Hispanic, Haitian and Hmong immigrants learn English in school, and there are no thriving Spanish-, French- or Hmong-language publications in Cass County. It is worth noting that these immigrants are fleeing gangs and dictators whom every American government has opposed for three decades.

If the German Marxists weren’t a problem, and they obviously were not, the Haitian or Guatemalans looking for the blessings of peace and capitalism cannot be. Several decades of careful research makes it clear that immigrants are today assimilating faster than ever before in our nation. That should be no surprise given the globally dominant American culture.

These immigrants came to Cass County for freedom and economic opportunity—German, Hispanic, Haitian and Hmong. That’s a good thing. Without the Germans, the farms and cities of early Cass County would never have grown. Without immigration by Hispanics, the Cass County population would be 25 percent lower today than in 2000, marking it as among the worse performing counties in the nation.

The news reporting, and Beckwith’s un-Christian and anti-American deportation proposals, paint Logansport as a hellscape of crime and poverty wrought by immigration. There is not a single data point to suggest that is true. In fact, recent immigration has brought new prosperity to Cass County and Logansport. A minimally honest journalistic effort would have revealed that. The list is startling.

Per resident nutrition assistance benefits (SNAP) are down 56 percent since 2010. Unemployment claims are less than 5 percent of what they were in 2010, saving businesses more than $625 per resident each year.

It is true that Medicaid spending is up, as are many other items like refundable tax credits, military healthcare and other items. But the U.S. Department of Commerce reports all government transfer payments except Social Security, and the result is stunning.

On a per capita basis, non-Social Security transfer payments in Cass County for health, welfare, income maintenance, education and everything else is down substantially in every year since 2010. Between 2010 and 2022, transfer payments per resident in Cass County, excluding Social Security, dropped by a whopping 59.8 percent.

In contrast, Social Security benefits in Cass County rose by 16.6 percent from 2010 to 2022. This is due to an aging native population. Immigrants gave Cass County its first population increase in decades last year, with a slight bump of 0.34 percent, or 129 souls. And all other economic indicators are doing well. GDP is up, the unemployment rate is near record lows and average earnings are up 13 percent—and all these data are adjusted for inflation.

Lies about Logansport should infuriate every Hoosier, none more so than those about schools, hospitals and crime.

Logansport school enrollment has risen by only 4.36 percent from 2010 to 2024. Like most Indiana schools, their standardized test scores are down over the past decade. But Logansport public schools outperform most charter and private schools that reported test scores in 2024.

These new students aren’t forcing students out, as the New York Post (see https://nypost.com/2024/10/21/us-news/logansport-in-students-struggle-after-thousands-of-migrants-moved-in/) and Fox News (see https://www.foxnews.com/politics/haitian-migrants-overwhelming-small-indiana-town-its-just-overrun/) have claimed. Rather, they are saving the school corporation by bringing more than $7.1 million per year in state funding. Without the extra enrollment provided by immigrants, at least one elementary school in Logansport would have already closed, perhaps more.

Crime in Logansport is down, not up. The quarterly crime rate peaked in May 2015 at 118 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. As of December 2023, the most recent data, violent crime was down by 9.2 percent, well below the state and national averages.

Cass County’s population peaked in 1974—a half-century ago. Without immigration, Cass County and Logansport will shrink. That means fewer schools, fewer physicians, a hospital at risk of closing, fewer groceries and restaurants. If there were waves of Ohioans moving to Logansport, everyone would be applauding the city’s success. Let Logansport take the win. The residents deserve it.

It must be said that Indiana suffered a wave of anti-immigration hysteria that led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. That wave of anti-immigration furor stunted economic and population growth in dozens of Hoosier counties for three generations. At its height, 1 in 3 Hoosier men joined the KKK, leaving millions of Hoosier families to take great pains to hide their family’s involvement with the Klan.

Now, I don’t think folks like Beckwith, who tell anti-immigrant lies today, are Klan sympathizers. But I have no doubt where they’d have stood in 1924, and neither do you.