Takeaways from AP's report on how Trump's immigration crackdown resonates in the Texas Panhandle
After his inauguration, President Donald Trump issued a series of orders ending legal pathways for immigrants to live and work in the U.S.
Those orders resonate powerfully in the Texas Panhandle, where nearly half of workers in the meatpacking industry are thought to be foreign-born.
Three months into the new administration, confusing government directives and court rulings have left vast numbers of immigrants unsure of what to do.
Immigrants and Panhandle meatpacking
Immigrants have long been drawn to the meatpacking industry, back to at least the late 1800s when multitudes of Europeans — Lithuanians, Sicilians, Russian Jews and others — filled Chicago’s Packingtown neighborhood.
For generations, immigrants have come to the Panhandle to work in its immense meatpacking plants, which developed as the state became the nation’s top cattle producer.
Those Panhandle plants were originally dominated by Mexicans and Central Americans. They gave way to waves of people fleeing poverty and violence around the world, from Somalia to Cuba.
They come because the pay in the Panhandle plants starts at roughly $23, and English skills aren’t very important in facilities where thunderous noise often means most communication is done in an informal sign language.
What workers need is a willingness to work very hard.
“Leave the United States”
“It’s time for you to leave the United States,” said the Department of Homeland Security email sent in early April to some immigrants living legally in the U.S. “Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you.”
This is what President Donald Trump had long promised.
America listened when Trump insisted during the campaign that immigrants were an existential threat. Immigration into the U.S., both legal and illegal, surged during the Biden administration, and Trump spun that into an apocalyptic vision that proved powerful with voters.
What was often left out, though, was the reality of those immigrants.
