Charleroi, Pennsylvania, like Springfield, Ohio, is also experiencing a growing number of problems from a tidal wave of Haitian migrants flooding into their small town.
While the media focuses on the woes of Springfield, Ohio, and its recent flood of Haitian migrants putting pressure on the small town, other small towns are experiencing similar problems. One of them is Charleroi, Pennsylvania, nestled on the banks of the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh in the western part of the state.
According to the activist group America-2100, the rural town has suffered a 2,000-percent increase in its population of Haitian migrants — and crime and traffic altercations have soared as a result.
Residents have been flooding social media with reports that migrants are attacking people on the street and mugging them, stealing cars, and ending up in traffic accidents throughout the area.
WPXI-TV reported in March that the rising number of immigrant children has stretched the local schools to the breaking point as administrators and teachers toil to educate migrant children, many of whom do not speak English, and some of whom have never gone to school in their entire young lives.
One 11th-grade student told the station that a big problem is that many of these migrant students are really not learning anything despite being enrolled in free schools because they don’t understand what is being said in class.
“The biggest challenge that every Haitian has is they don’t know what you are saying. For you, it’s like blah blah blah, you don’t say nothing you are just sitting in the class listening and you just don’t understand,” the child, who is also a Haitian migrant, said.
Charleroi schools superintendent Dr. Ed Zelich noted that the new students are costing his school hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to accommodate them.
“Just in the last year we had over $400,000, we had to add two ELL [English language learner] teachers, an ELL coach for our teachers, a registrar, an interpreter,” Zelich told WPIX.
Zelich added that the school is expecting another $300,000 to be spent next year and that they need even more from the state.
The school chief is also worried because as more migrants arrive, his school has run out of room to put them and city officials are not looking to build larger schools any time soon.
America-2100 recently spoke to Charleroi councilman Larry Celaschi, who raised the alarm about the huge influx of migrants swamping his community.
“You know, the sad part about all this thing,” Celaschi said in a phone interview, “and, honestly, I don’t care, I’ll shoot straight from the hip. Frankly, I wish I could come face-to-face for 60 seconds with, OK, with whoever was behind all this and bringing the immigrants in to Charleroi for only one reason — [to ask] where the hell’s the money that should be coming to Charleroi, OK?”
Celaschi concluded that the migrant burden is sapping his town’s resources.
“Why was it all dumped on us and we’re not being funded with anything, OK? And, again, we can’t even make ends meet with our budget,” Celaschi said of the city. “And so now, where are we gonna get this extra revenue to pay for them? And then we’ve got to do all these things to accommodate the immigrants. That’s bullshit.”
Former President Donald Trump raised the alarm about the problems that have beset Charleroi and the pressures the town is facing.
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