Meatpacking Industry in Texas Panhandle Struggles as Immigrant Workers Confront Deportation Risks

LAKE WORTH, Texas — After he took office, President Donald Trump signed a number of orders that made it illegal for foreigners to legally live and work in the U.S.

People in the Texas Panhandle, where about half of the people who work in the meatpacking business are thought to be from other countries, feel those orders very strongly.

Three months into the new administration, a lot of foreigners don’t know what to do because of the confusing rules and instructions from the government and the courts.

Immigrants and packing meat in the Panhandle

For a long time, immigrants have been drawn to the meatpacking business. At least as early as the late 1800s, the Packingtown neighborhood in Chicago was full of Lithuanians, Sicilians, Russian Jews, and other Europeans.

People from other countries have come to the Panhandle for generations to work in its huge meatpacking plants, which grew as the state became the biggest source of cattle in the country.

People from Mexico and Central America used to run those Panhandle businesses. They made room for waves of people from Somalia to Cuba who were running away from poverty and war.

They come because the pay in the Panhandle plants starts at about $23 a week, and it’s not necessary to know English to work there—there’s so much noise that people usually talk to each other using a form of sign language.

To get a job, people need to be ready to work very hard.

“Leave the United States”

An email from the Department of Homeland Security to some foreigners living legally in the U.S. in early April said, “It’s time for you to leave the United States.” “If you try to stay in the United States, the federal government will find you.”

This is what President Trump has said for a long time.

People in the US paid attention when Trump said during the campaign that immigration were a threat to our very existence. Both legal and illegal immigration to the U.S. rose during Biden’s presidency, and Trump used that to paint a scary picture of the end of the world that people liked.

What was often left out, though, was how those newcomers really lived.

The White House only talks about the small amount of immigrants they say are in gangs, but there are actually about 2 million immigrants living legally in the U.S. on different types of temporary status.

It was said that more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti would lose their legal status on April 24. However, a federal judge’s order put that on hold for now. In August, about 500,000 Haitians will lose a different kind of protection.

“It’s all so confusing,” said Lesvia Mendoza, a 53-year-old special education teacher who moved in with her son in Amarillo, the panhandle’s biggest city, and is in the process of becoming an American citizen. She and her husband moved here from Venezuela in 2024.

An business that needs immigrants

Now, a business that depends on foreign workers is planning for a time when it might have to fire thousands of immigrants.

It will be like this again, with lots of people leaving their jobs all the time, said Mark Lauritsen, who runs the meatpacking section for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and speaks for thousands of workers in the Panhandle. “That’s assuming you have workers to take over the jobs we’re losing.”

The last haul?

This job as a truck driver looked like the way to the American dream for Kevenson Jean, who was born in Haiti.

Kevenson He learned about snow, the risks of high winds, and how to behave at a truck stop because Jean’s truck took him across huge parts of America. The truck belongs to his boss, but he knows everything there is to know about it.

“I love her,” he says with a laugh as he pats the hood.

In 2023, he and his wife came to the U.S. with the help of a family from the Panhandle. Their small nonprofit hired him to run a school and food center for kids in rural Haiti.

“We’re not bad people.” Jean said, “We’re not taking American jobs.” Her job of moving meat and other goods doesn’t attract as many American-born drivers as it used to.

“Now they’re going after us even though we did everything they asked of us.”

Kevenson left Panhandle on what he thought would be his last take on a Tuesday in the middle of April.

As he checked the oil, wires, and brakes, he looked very sad. In the end, he got behind the wheel, took off his baseball cap, and prayed, which is something he always does before leaving.

After that, he put his hat back on, fastened his seat belt, and drove west on Route 60.

After a few days, Kevenson learned that he could keep his job.

He couldn’t find out how long the break would last.

About The Author