Hometown arrivals

Tension hung in the room at the July 30 City Commission meeting in Springfield, Ohio, as Mike Powell, with black sunglasses pushed back on his head of thick gray hair, stepped up to the microphone. He was one of several city residents who had gathered to express their concern about the Midwestern town’s recent surge in immigrants.

Powell said he quietly accepted the newcomers until a spike in Springfield’s housing prices—up 27 percent since last year—began affecting his family: “It’s gotten completely out of hand.”

“Not one person had a meeting and asked anyone in this community how we felt about them coming in here,” he added.

The population of Springfield, a ­former manufacturing hub, has declined steadily for decades, hovering around 60,000 at the 2020 census. Since then, an estimated 15,000-20,000 Haitian immigrants have settled in the town.

Between January 2021 and January 2024, federal officials encountered over 6.3 million migrants at the U.S. southern border. More than 2.4 million were ­ultimately allowed to stay in the U.S., typically with temporary legal status or to await settlement of asylum claims.

While major metropolises have absorbed most of the new arrivals, many smaller U.S. cities and towns are also grappling with the rapid immigration. Springfield, situated in a conservative-­leaning state, has experienced a local backlash to the mass arrivals, while Portland, Maine, a New England town in a liberal state, has attempted to put out a welcome mat. But local immigration influxes come with costs and benefits, and interviews with residents show that views in both places are mixed.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, launched Springfield into the national spotlight during an address to the National Conservatism Conference in July.

“Ask the people there whether they have been enriched by 20,000 newcomers in four years,” he said. “Housing is through the roof.”

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue and City Manager Bryan Heck also appeared on Fox & Friends First to highlight the city’s strained infrastructure. And a deadly school bus accident last year caused by an unlicensed Haitian driver helped sour community perceptions of the new arrivals.

At the July 30 meeting, Springfield residents named a litany of concerns: rising car insurance due to new drivers on the road. Overwhelmed hospitals. A school system flooded with new English speakers.

But some residents say the immigrants have reversed a decades-long population decline and helped fill local labor shortages. Pastor Carl Ruby of Springfield’s Central Christian church said he regrets the city’s catapult into national prominence: “We are benefiting from the Haitians being here, but we are being used as an example of a city that’s overrun.”

Haitian immigrant Vilès Dorsainvil, 38, decided to settle in Springfield in 2021 after his nephew told him he’d easily find work there. Dorsainvil, who now directs the Haitian Community Help & Support Center, said most Haitians hear about Springfield by word of mouth: “Normally a friend tells a friend … And another friend tells another friend.”

Dorsainvil arrived in the United States on a short-term tourist visa. Like many of his fellow immigrants, he is now on Temporary Protected Status, a program that allows immigrants of certain nationalities temporarily to live and work in the United States if their home countries are deemed unsafe. Dorsainvil fears targeted gang violence if he returns to his politically troubled homeland.

PORTLAND, MAINE, has tried to adopt a welcoming tone to its new arrivals.

Asylum-seekers temporarily overwhelmed Portland last year, when an inrush of primarily Angolan and Congolese immigrants forced the city of 68,000 to open a new emergency shelter.

Still, the city is vocal about its need for newcomers. City officials say migrants are key to reviving an aging workforce and the local lobster fishing industry. A city resettlement program connects immigrants with welfare benefits and housing assistance in Portland and neighboring cities.

“We’re one of the oldest states in the union,” Portland City Councilor Roberto Rodríguez told me. “We need immigrants to help fuel our economy.”

Yet as asylum-seekers move in, taxpayers are footing the bill. Over the past two years, the quasi-governmental agency MaineHousing has spent at least $35 million to house the new arrivals. In Maine, asylum-seekers qualify for food and shelter vouchers through the state’s general assistance program, which is administered at the local level and reimbursed up to 70 percent by the state.

Between 2022 and 2023, the city increased its social services budget by $23 million. Local news outlet Maine Wire obtained data showing Portland has spent 73 percent of Maine’s general assistance funds since 2019.

Former state Sen. Amy Volk, a Republican, introduced the amendment allowing asylum-seekers to receive general assistance benefits. That became law in 2015. “It just made sense to me,” she said. “Both as a Christian … and also as somebody who was concerned about workforce issues.”

Today, Volk said she wouldn’t have voted for the change in light of the influx of arrivals: “It’s gone from being a trickle to being a waterfall.”

Portland has received significantly fewer immigrants than Springfield, but it’s unclear how many: The city stopped keeping track in 2023. (Over 1,000 asylum-seekers arrived between January and April last year, the city says.)

Ruben Torres of the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition said asylum-­seekers are still arriving regularly. Housing is in short supply, and landlords are often reluctant to accept the general assistance vouchers.

Despite those challenges, local leaders say Maine’s growing immigrant population is also revitalizing a deteriorating church in one of the nation’s least religious states.

Papy Kasidimoko, who fled political violence in Angola eight years ago, now serves as an associate pastor at Unity Bible Church in nearby Lewiston. When he joined the church, older people composed the majority of the congregation, Kasidimoko recalled. But now, he said, “the church is really growing. … We have so many different generations.”

Back in Ohio, Dorsainvil said Haitians are still coming, but they’re not all staying. Jobs have gotten harder to come by if you can’t speak English. But the task of building a new community in a fraught environment is ongoing.

“Every new beginning has its own challenges,” Dorsainvil said. But he believes open dialogue and cooperation can “forge a peaceful community.”