In 1990, the town’s Hispanic and Latino population was less than 1 percent. According to census data, nearly a quarter of Seymour’s residents are Hispanic or Latino in 2025. (Devan Ridgway, WTIU News)
Attendance at Seymour City Council meetings has increased since last spring, when hundreds of residents showed up to speak against a proposed Immigrant Welcome Center.
In 1990, the town’s Hispanic and Latino population was less than 1 percent. According to census data, nearly a quarter of Seymour’s residents are Hispanic or Latino in 2025.
That demographic change, and the divisiveness that followed, has attracted attention from Attorney General Todd Rokita, The Wall Street Journal, and Facebook groups dedicated to the topic in Seymour.
Public feedback during Seymour’s council meeting Monday included a man who brought up a frequent issue: undocumented people cited for not having a driver’s license.
“Are we still of the policy that we're not going to book for just driving with never having a license?” Kevin Kaplan said. “Are we still not arresting and booking, even if it's just 10 minutes to photograph fingerprint at the jail?”
Currently, immigrants who lack permanent legal status are not allowed to drive in Indiana.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised mass deportations and harsher penalties for undocumented people, which long-time Seymour resident Bob Beatty supports.
According to a report from the Brookings Institute, the number of immigrant and Latino people in Seymour increased by 174 percent from 2010 to 2020.
Beatty joined Seymour’s city council in November.
Seymour wasn’t equipped for the demographic change, he said. Education, housing, and wages have all been affected.
“The sociological impact is significant also,” he said. “Exacerbating the housing issue, which we already had, is the fact that immigrants legal or illegal, doesn't matter how you characterize it, are taking up housing units that local folks had to move out of, for various issues. Some of us are coming to realize it's unsustainable.”
Beatty said businesses profiting from cheap labor enable the situation. He called out employers like Valeo, which has been in Seymour since 1978, and the Walmart Distribution Center, which opened in Seymour in 1990.
“This is a massive operation that's just not happening organically,” Beatty said. “Why is Seymour, Indiana, a small town in southern Indiana, why is their nonnative population now, 36 percent? That's the question that people are asking.”
Before he joined city council, Beatty helped administer a Facebook group, which he said is meant to raise awareness of immigration’s effect on Seymour and Jackson County.
“It's happening everywhere, it's not just Seymour, Indiana,” he said. “It's not some – I've used this term before – pissed off old white guys in Seymour, Indiana, that are upset over this. It's happening across the country.”
State Rep. Jim Lucas of Seymour authored a bill in the state legislature that would allow public schools to deny enrollment to undocumented students. He saqid educating undocumented students, especially those learning English, is costing taxpayers large amounts of money and impacting the progress of other students.
Last month, the Seymour City Council and Jackson County Council passed resolutions asking Indiana’s legislature to implement harsher penalties for drivers without a license. That’s a possible sign that someone is undocumented.
Read more: Rokita threatens St. Joseph, Lake County sheriffs with lawsuits over alleged immigration policies
Indiana house representative Alex Zimmerman introduced House Bill 1114, which would increase penalties for driving without a license, which has its first hearing this month.
But Seymour’s attorney, Chris Engleking, has concerns about unlawfully detaining people.
“There are things that can be done to solve an issue that don't infringe upon the rights of other members of the community,” she said.
In October, Rokita issued the town a Civil Litigation Demand with questions on whether Seymour is a so-called Sanctuary City, in violation of state law.
The request flabbergasted the town’s chief of police, Greg O’Brien. He said immigration is a federal issue, but his department readily works with federal immigration agents. They have used the Seymour Police Department as a substation, he said
“They would run operations out of our upstairs training room,” O’Brien said. “There were numerous ICE agents that have access to the building with key codes to the back door.”
O’Brien said crime in general has not increased in Seymour except for traffic violations, which are most of his department’s interactions with immigrants. State law, he said, prohibits law enforcement from detaining someone just for not having a driver’s license. But explaining and enforcing laws to people new to the area is a challenge.
The Wall Street Journal’s attempt to take the temperature of the town resulted in an article last month with this headline: “For Many People in This Small Town, Deportations Can’t Come Soon Enough.”
The director of Su Casa Indiana, Ashley Caceres, said the increased attention to immigration has been harmful for her staff and people she works with. The organization supports Hispanic and Latino people in Bartholomew and Jackson Counties.
“A lot of our staff has been nervous or might have expressed feeling unsafe or unwelcomed,” she said. “And then we also received that feedback from some of the families that we serve, feeling a bit of confusion or a bit of disappointment in a narrative that has been expressed pretty loudly.”
Caceres’ parents immigrated to Seymour in the 1990s. She attended school in Seymour and graduated from Ball State.
“People come here to work and then see an opportunity to invest in the community and grow their families here,” she said.
Su Casa helps connect people with health, education, language, and social resources. Most often, people have questions about accessing healthcare or mental health services for youth, Caceres said. Su Casa served 1,600 households in 2024.
“Building trust with communities, especially communities that might be vulnerable or underrepresented, is hard work and takes a lot of time,” she said. “And it can be broken with the snap of a finger.”
Legal documentation is not an either-or distinction, Caceres said. People can be on DACA or applying for a green card. And the pathway to citizenship can take years.
“It's not you’re undocumented, and then you fill out a paper and you're documented,” she said. “That's not how it works. It's really complicated. It costs thousands of dollars.”
She said the immigration rules president-elect Donald Trump has proposed have created confusion among families. People have been asking for help filling out applications for passports and ways to delegate assets.
“People have a lot of questions,” Caceres said. “People don't know if they should continue investing in their immigration journey. There's just a lot of unknowns right now, which is hard for us.”
