Hispanic Youth in Mississippi:
The Placement of Unaccompanied Children 2015 - 2023
3,448 youth under 18 years of age were placed in Mississippi as Unaccompanied Children from January 2015 through May 2023. The illustrations below show where most of these young people were placed with sponsors in Mississippi.
North Mississippi
Central Mississippi
South Mississippi
Forest, Mississippi
From 2015 through 2023, 430 Unaccompanied Children were placed in Forest, Mississippi, by the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services. Forest has 5,430 residents, and of these, 1,841 are Hispanic.
According to the Census Bureau, 1 in 4 residents is under 18, and 1 in 5 is below the poverty level. The total population under 19 is 1,516 young people. More than 25 percent of the population speaks a language other than English in their home. Thirty percent of the population is Hispanic.
Of the Unaccompanied Children that were placed in the town, 125 were female, and 303 were male. The overwhelming majority of the children are from Guatemala (416 - Guatemala, 5 - Mexico, 6 - Honduras, 3 - El Salvador).
There are three poultry processing plants: Tysons Foods, Koch Foods, and Forest Packing Company. The companies employ 5,500 people. Raytheon also has a plant in Forest and it employs 650 employees. See the link to the Excel file for Mississippi.
City Unaccompanied Children
FOREST 432
BILOXI 246
GULFPORT 241
CANTON 210
JACKSON 193
LAUREL 186
HATTIESBURG 158
HAZLEHURST 152
MORTON 145
RIDGELAND 98
WAYNESBORO 90
CARTHAGE 80
TUPELO 72
PEARL 64
OXFORD 57
CORINTH 47
BRANDON 46
DIBERVILLE 46
PONTOTOC 45
MERIDIAN 41
SOUTHAVEN 34
MCCOMB 32
CRYSTAL SPRINGS 29
NEW ALBANY 25
PETAL 25
RICHLAND 24
BYHALIA 22
COLUMBUS 22
HERNANDO 22
PASCAGOULA 19
PICAYUNE 18
STARKVILLE 18
HORN LAKE 17
MOSS POINT 17
RIPLEY 16
UTICA 16
MADISON 15
GUNTOWN 14
LUCEDALE 14
CALEDONIA 12
GAUTIER 12
OLIVE BRANCH 12
ELLISVILLE 11
GREENWOOD 11
PASS CHRISTIAN 11
VICKSBURG 11
COLLINS 10
VARDAMAN 10
Current Population Demographics of Forest, Mississippi
Source: US Census
