WSJ: MASSIVE MIGRATION INTO US IMPACTS EVERY COMMUNITY
(Excerpts from WSJ article June, 2024)
HERRIMAN, Utah—When the first migrants began arriving in this affluent suburb tucked in a valley flanked by snow-capped mountains, few took notice. Now, schools and apartment complexes are suddenly filled with newcomers, and Spanish has become a common language heard at the local Walmart.
“It almost felt like it came out of nowhere,” said Lorin Palmer, Herriman’s mayor. “It’s been hard, but we’ve got a community that’s sure trying.”
Record waves of illegal border crossings in recent years have sent tens of thousands of migrants to urban centers including New York, Chicago and nearby Salt Lake City, straining their budgets and services. Arrivals are increasingly making their way to suburbs and small cities across the U.S. that are even less prepared to handle them, forcing communities to improvise responses and sometimes generating hostility.
The number of people with new immigration cases—a proxy for migrant arrivals—has soared in some suburban counties ringing metro areas, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.
In Denton County, Texas, outside Dallas, those with new cases ballooned 16-fold to 8,632 between 2020 and 2023.
In Kane County, Ill., outside Chicago, their number jumped 17-fold to 3,496 over that period, while in Rutherford County, Tenn., outside Nashville, it increased 20-fold to 3,315.
Bradenton, Fla., a city of 57,000 people south of Tampa, has seen its foreign-born population rise sharply, according to census data.
Hamilton, Ohio, a city of 63,000 people north of Cincinnati, has witnessed blowback to jumps in the migrant population. After police announced an aggravated-murder charge in April against a man who had entered the U.S. illegally numerous times, Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones pointed to what he called a “border invasion.”
“We’re all border states, we’re all border counties,” he said.
A recent alert by the state of UT warned asylum seekers that no shelter space is available and that food banks are at capacity. Unless they have stable connections, it said, “consider another state to settle in the U.S.”
All of it is playing out in the midst of polarizing debates over illegal immigration in the presidential race and statewide campaigns for Utah governor and U.S. Senate.
The number of people with new immigration cases climbed to 12,840 in Salt Lake County, which includes Herriman, in fiscal year 2023, from 752 in fiscal year 2020, according to TRAC data.
Still, signs of strain are emerging. The number of students learning English as a second language at the school reached 270 this year, compared with 17 a decade ago, said Kelli Nielsen, who leads the program.
Teachers are overhauling classroom instruction to accommodate the needs of migrants, and schools are turning into what she called “social welfare centers.”
“The growing needs of this dependency class will eventually outgrow the taxpayers’ ability to keep up with the demand,” Cline said.
Election-year politics is a factor. In the Utah gubernatorial race, the Republican challenger Phil Lyman has criticized the incumbent, GOP Gov. Spencer Cox, as soft on immigration for supporting such measures as in-state tuition for some migrants.
“Utah is not spending any state resources to house or provide other basic services for illegal immigrants or asylum seekers,” Cox said in a statement. “Municipalities, local nonprofits, faith-based organizations and schools have been shouldering the burden.”
Palmer said he worries that the nonprofit and volunteer corps is burning out and that Herriman’s generally welcoming posture could invite even more newcomers it isn’t equipped to receive. But he said the city would keep trying to address challenges as best it can.
“It’s about trying to keep the community together,” Palmer said.