By The Daily Wire (World News) | Created at 2024-10-30 12:05:06 | Updated at 2024-10-30 15:22:22
8 hours ago
ATHENS, Alabama—As van loads of Haitian migrants began arriving over the summer, residents in Alabama started to wonder whether their already-swelling community could handle the influx.
Not satisfied with the answers they were getting from local officials, Jarrod and Amanda Schulte started investigating for themselves. They soon found themselves walking around north Athens, a run-down part of the city where migrants from all over the world live in dilapidated homes.
“What we found was not very pretty,” Jarrod Schulte told The Daily Wire. “The city of Athens, our politicians, they all need to do better.”
The Schultes and others in Alabama worry that their cities will become the next Springfield, Ohio, where a large influx of Haitian migrants was accompanied by a surge in crime and traffic accidents. Springfield made national headlines after former President Donald Trump mentioned the city during the September presidential debate, during a discussion of the impacts of mass migration on small cities across the country, not just in border states. Similar problems have arisen in Pennsylvania and Indiana, where residents worry their small cities don’t have enough resources to handle the influx.
The Daily Wire traveled to Athens and spoke to more than a dozen current residents, consisting of both longtime residents and migrants. The concern is not only that migrants are impacting the lives of those who were already there, straining already scarce resources in the town, but also the lives that migrants lead upon arrival.
Pierre-Marc, a 44-year-old Haitian migrant in Athens whom the Schultes befriended, is currently living alongside four other Haitian adults and two children in a rundown home in north Athens.
When Pierre-Marc first met the Schultes, the facade of his home was covered in peeling paint and dotted with cracked windows. There was no furniture in the home, and residents washed their clothes in the sink they shared.
A migrant home in Athens / The Daily Wire.
The Alabama cities of Albertville and Enterprise have also seen an increase in migrant workers coming to their area. As locals seek answers about the migrants’ legal status, city officials have shifted the blame to the Biden-Harris administration.
“We are aware that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ program allows refugees from Haiti to be placed in our community,” Enterprise Mayor William Cooper said last month. “It is unfortunate that we as a city were given no advanced notice nor additional resources to accommodate this influx.”
Cooper admitted that his city was being “taxed” by the influx, and said he was working with other communities throughout Alabama.
Athens spokeswoman Holly Hollman told The Daily Wire that the city is forced to reach out to federal authorities when pressed by locals about the increase in migrants.
“As this is a federal issue, Athens officials reached out to state and federal officials, including the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Hollman said. “Federal officials have advised there are new immigrants from Haiti with federal work permits in the area, and they are here working legally in Alabama.”
In Albertville, about 110 Haitian students have joined the school system of about 5,800 since June.
“It’s complicated,” Albertville Superintendent Bart Reeves told the Alabama Daily News in August. “When kids get here, we want to educate them to the best of our ability and give them a first-class education. And we’ll keep doing that. But we need help. I cannot emphasize that enough.”
Reeves said that the district did not have nearly enough translators to help with the influx. “We do have some translators, but certainly not the number we need,” he said. “So that’s challenging.”
State Rep. Brock Colvin of Albertville told 1819 News earlier this month that the school district was still struggling to handle a wave of migration that brought many people who only spoke Spanish.
Athens City School told The Daily Wire that about 669 of its 5,373 students were classified as English learners and that the district had 24 students in the system from Haiti. Superintendent Beth Patton said the district had no plans to hire any additional ESL teachers.
The Schultes say they were surprised to discover the home their Haitian friend Pierre-Marc was living in was owned by a city councilman, Chris Seibert, who owns 87 properties in Limestone County.
The migrants in the house said they were paying $2,000 per month to stay in the 1,216-square-foot home, but were recently told their rent would be reduced to $1,500 per month in December, according to a text message viewed by The Daily Wire. Brenda, a lifelong resident of Athens who lived in the home for over 10 years until October 2023, told The Daily Wire that she paid just $325 to rent the home.
Seibert told The Daily Wire the rent hike reflected $25,000 of repairs he made, and that the previous tenant had a specific agreement because she was on a fixed income. According to county records, the property value has increased by around $4,000 from 2023 to 2024. Seibert said that the $2,000 amount the migrants first paid included a security deposit and not their monthly rate, but did not specify what the current rate was. He did say that the rent was not fluctuating and the migrants were clear on the “amount per my property manager.”
There are still issues with the home, including exposed outlets and a poor-fitting front door. Some minor repairs, including painting and plumbing, were done shortly after the Schultes started poking around.
Seibert said that the property had been examined by the city and was compliant with building codes, but did not specify how the repair money had been spent.
The Daily Wire spoke with several other migrants from Haiti and Latin America living at similar Seibert-owned homes, who said they paid at least $800 per month. Multiple local residents living in rundown homes told The Daily Wire that the rates they paid were hundreds of dollars less than the migrants.
A home occupied by migrants in north Athens: Daily Wire.
Mark Wilson, a 65-year-old African-American man who’s lived his whole life in north Athens, has been on a crusade to improve his neighborhood for years. Wilson has filed numerous complaints with the state over Seibert’s rental properties and believes that local officials are looking the other way on home maintenance.
“What it all boils down to is revenue, it boils down to money,” Wilson told The Daily Wire, adding that he wants city officials held accountable.
Seibert said that his rates were determined by the market value and whether the home had been renovated. He also said that all maintenance issues were responded to when his property managers were told about issues. He added that all of the migrants in his homes were legally in the United States and that there was no assistance from the government to help pay the rent.
“All maintenance issues with my company’s properties are dealt with in a timely fashion as my property managers are made aware of these issues,” Seibert said. “There is zero truth that any tenant is being exploited due to nationality or that any tenant is being charged differently due to nationality.”
The housing concerns have exploded into controversy at city council meetings, with some locals demanding Seibert step down.
“He has a vested interest in migrants that fill his properties, and it is unclear whether Athens citizens have been harmed by this conflict of interest,” a recent petition said. “It is also a conflict of interest for a sitting Council Member to investigate inhumane treatment of these migrants in housing properties that he owns.”
Seibert says he has been the target of a “smear campaign” because of his position on the city council and says that he has spent hundreds of thousands in improvements in north Athens.
“All of my company’s tenants willingly enter into an agreement to rent upon personally reviewing the property and are free to move if they are unhappy with location, price, etc,” he said.
A Mexican flag flies in north Athens.
Concerns about housing are not unique to Athens. In nearby Enterprise, there have been reports of migrants staying in homes that are outside of city code. In response, Mayor Cooper said that the city would be watching landlords closely.
“We are holding landlords responsible. We are ensuring that everyone has access to essential services like clean, running water as well as safe living conditions,” he said last month.
Similar housing issues have been the focus of the Justice Department’s investigation into Colony Ridge, a Texas neighborhood where developers have been accused of misleading non-English speaking customers about development plots sold to them without water, sewer, or electrical infrastructure.
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Locals wonder what is drawing so many migrants to their communities. Many immigrants told The Daily Wire they work at Pilgrim’s Pride or other chicken production locations.
Pierre-Marc has a job working at Pilgrim’s processing plant in Russellville, Alabama, which is over an hour away. He has a United States employment authorization card that is valid until 2025. He and dozens of other migrants are picked up at Northside Church of Christ in vans commissioned by Pilgrim’s to transport the workers back and forth.
An employee at Dollar General across the street from the church told The Daily Wire that he observes dozens of migrants every day being picked up and dropped off at the church.
Migrant drop off in Athens after a day of work.
Pilgrim’s says that its Russellville plant “had an expansion that resulted in increased job opportunities,” and that it chose to hire applicants living further away and provide transportation.
“Our neighboring facility that experiences low turnover has had an applicant waitlist for quite some time. Because of this, we hired many of those individuals and provide transportation to and from the Russellville plant for our team members who live in the surrounding areas, something we have been doing for months. We are not using a hiring agency in Alabama,” a company spokeswoman told The Daily Wire.
Athens residents are still wondering why the migrants are traveling over two hours every day for work, and worried that Limestone County, the fastest growing in Alabama, cannot absorb an additional influx of migrants. Communities across the country, from Indiana to Ohio to Pennsylvania, have dealt with similar issues.
Enterprise Mayor Cooper said he would be working with other communities in Alabama to address the issue.
“To the citizens of Enterprise: we hear you. We are as frustrated as you are that our resources are limited and taxed by this federal program,” he said. “We are working with other communities that are experiencing a similar influx. We are seeking out resources where we can, while ensuring that all city, state and federal laws are followed.”
