Immigrants who came to the Texas Panhandle to work legally have been told they must leave

Source: Associated Press

Immigrants who came to the Texas Panhandle to work legally have been told they must leave

By TIM SULLIVAN
Updated 12:29 PM EDT, April 30, 2025

PANHANDLE, Texas (AP) — The truck driver is cutting his lawn on a windy afternoon, in a town so quiet you can take afternoon walks down the middle of Main Street.

Kevenson Jean is leaving the next day for another long haul and wants things neat at the two-bedroom home he shares with his wife in the Texas Panhandle town fittingly called Panhandle. So after mowing he carefully pulls grass from around the flagpoles in his front yard. One holds the Haitian flag, the other American. Both are fading in the sun.

The young couple, who fled the violence that has engulfed Haiti, thought until a few months ago that they could see the American dream, somewhere in the distance.

Now they are caught up in the confusion and fear that are rippling through the immigrant communities that dot this region. Newcomers have come here for generations to work in immense meatpacking plants that emerged as the state became the nation’s top cattle producer. But after President Donald Trump moved to end legal pathways that immigrants like the Jeans have used, their future — as well as the future of the communities and industries they are a part of — is uncertain.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-immigration-texas-panhandle-meatpacking-89e4c46621d4db04ed436323d24bded7