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

By TIM SULLIVAN 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 rigorously 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 scarce 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 We are not criminals We re not taking American jobs disclosed Jean whose work moving meat and other products doesn t attract as a multitude of U S -born drivers as it once did He s been making more money than he ever imagined He s discovered the joys of Bud Light fishing and the Dallas Cowboys When she s not at one of her two food system jobs his wife Sherlie works on her English by reading paperback romances the covers awash in swooning women We did everything that they required us to do and now we re being targeted Haitian immigrant Kevenson Jean mows his yard Monday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrant Kevenson Jean a truck driver packs for road trip Tuesday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrant Kevenson Jean a truck driver checks his truck before a road trip Tuesday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrant Kevenson Jean a truck driver prays before beginning a road trip Tuesday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrant Kevenson Jean a truck driver checks his truck before a road trip Tuesday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrants Kevenson Jean a truck driver looks over papers at his home Monday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrants Sherlie Jean and husband Kevenson Jean center join friends and their sponsor for a meal Monday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrants Sherlie Jean left holds hands with her husband Kevenson Jean during a prayer before eating with friends Monday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrants Kevenson Jean a truck driver and wife Sherlie Jean a fast food worker speak about their status status in the United States at their rental home Monday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Show Caption of Haitian immigrant Kevenson Jean mows his yard Monday April in Panhandle Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Expand Leave the United States The message was blunt It s time for you to leave the United States the Department of Homeland Prevention explained in an early April email to chosen immigrants who had legal permission to live in the U S Do not attempt to remain in the United States the federal cabinet will find you Haitian immigrant Nicole who works for a meat processing plant shows an email terminating her parole Sunday April in Dumas Texas AP Photo Eric Gay This is what Trump had long promised 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 The White House rhetoric has focused on illegal immigration and the relatively small number of immigrants they say are gang members or who have committed violent crimes However the Trump administration also has sought to end a great number of legal avenues for immigrants to come to the U S and revoke the temporary status of hundreds of thousands of people already here saying people had not been properly vetted Jean is among roughly million immigrants living legally in the U S on various sort of temporary status Bulk have fled deeply troubled countries Haiti Cuba Nicaragua Venezuela Afghanistan Myanmar Sudan A multitude of are allowed to work in the U S and have jobs and pay taxes Jean is sympathetic in tactics to the immigration crackdown The White House I respect what they say he explained They are working to make America safer But I will say not all immigrants are gang members Not all immigrants are like a criminal Chosen of them just like me and my wife and other people they are coming here just to have a better life The administration explained more than Cubans Nicaraguans Venezuelans and Haitians they would lose their legal status on April though a judge has put that on hold About Haitians are scheduled to lose a different protected status in August A sign for Trails End Road home to the JBS meat processing plant rests on a stop sign Tuesday April in Dumas Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Cattle are penned at a feedlot Tuesday April in Cactus Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Show Caption of A sign for Trails End Road home to the JBS meat processing plant rests on a stop sign Tuesday April in Dumas Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Expand It s obvious we re needed The administration directives and ensuing court battles have left multiple immigrants unsure of what to do It s all so confusing explained Lesvia Mendoza a -year-old special tuition educator who came with her husband from Venezuela in moving in with her son who lives in Amarillo the Panhandle s largest city and who is in the process of getting U S citizenship She doesn t understand why the immigration crackdown affects people like her who came legally and never received administration assistance I do know that he says America for the Americans she stated But all the jobs all the production that happens because of immigrants It s obvious we re needed She mentioned she will leave the U S if ordered to Others aren t so sure I really can t go back stated a Haitian woman who appealed to be identified only as Nicole because she fears deportation It s not even a decision She works at a meatpacking plant deboning cattle carcasses for more than an hour She received Homeland Shield s message but insists it can t refer to someone who has followed the laws as she had pointing to a phrase exempting people who have otherwise obtained a lawful basis to remain Haitian immigrant Nicole who works for a meat processing plant holds wild flowers she picked near her apartment Sunday April in Dumas Texas AP Photo Eric Gay A town called Cactus Deep in the Panhandle where cattle graze in seemingly endless prairie punctuated with rusting oil pumpjacks is the town of Cactus A wooden mosque with a gold-domed top is set amid streets of battered mobile homes and churches for Roman Catholics Baptists and Nazarenes There s a Somali restaurant a shop for Central American groceries and a Thai takeout place At Golden Lotus Area you can pick up Vietnamese instant coffee and a cereal drink from Myanmar A flyer taped to the store s entrance and written in English Spanish and Burmese announces a new youth sports league Do you like to play baseball You meet all walks of life here explained Ricardo Gutierrez who was raised in Cactus I have Burmese friends Cubans Columbians everyone Sometimes when the wind is blowing the acrid smell of the slaughterhouse signals the town s biggest employer The meatpacking facility with more than workers is owned by JBS the world s largest beef producer The loss of immigrant labor would be a blow to the industry We re going to be back in this situation of constant turnover explained Mark Lauritsen who runs the meatpacking division for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union which represents thousands of Panhandle workers That s assuming you have labor to replace the labor we re losing Nearly half of workers in the meatpacking industry are thought to be foreign-born Immigrants have long ascertained work in slaughterhouses back to at least the late s when multitudes of Europeans Lithuanians Sicilians Russian Jews and others filled Chicago s Packingtown neighborhood The 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 After U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a massive operation at Swift Co meatpacking plants in and detained hundreds of workers the Cactus slaughterhouse now owned by JBS increasingly hired refugees and asylum-seekers with legal permission to live and work in the U S Pay starts at roughly an hour English skills aren t needed in part because the thunderous noise of the machines often means communication is done with hand signals What is required is a willingness to do physically demanding work It was the JBS plant that brought Idaneau Mintor to Cactus where he works the overnight shift amid relentless blood and gore Every morning they kill the cows and at night I come in to clean the equipment he says flatly Haitian immigrants walk through the park following a church provision Sunday April in Dumas Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrant Idaneau Mintor a meat plant worker reflects on his status in the United States Tuesday April in Dumas Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Haitian immigrant Idaneau Mintor a meat plant worker stands at the doorway of his one-bedroom apartment he shares with a fellow Haitian Tuesday April in Dumas Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Show Caption of Haitian immigrants walk through the park following a church facility Sunday April in Dumas Texas AP Photo Eric Gay Expand A lonely life Mintor lives in nearby Dumas in a small one-story house divided into three one-bedroom apartments He takes home about a month and pays about for a single mattress on the living room floor and a chair where he can pile his clothes His roommate gets the bedroom Sleep he says is sometimes impossible as he worries about the large family he supports in Haiti and whether his work permit will be canceled On the kitchen counter are stacks of receipts for the money transfers he s sent back home He s been here for months and can t fathom being sent back I follow the rules he commented I respect everything He has no real friends and doesn t go out afraid he could somehow get in trouble I spend my entire day doing nothing and thinking he explained leaning against the home s stucco walls by the concrete parking spaces that used to be the front yard So I m happy when it s time to go to work and I have something to do The last haul The sun was barely above the horizon when trucker Kevenson Jean packed a sparse clothes zipped up his suitcase and got ready for what he thought would be his final run He and his wife came to the U S in sponsored by a Panhandle family whose small nonprofit employed him to run a school and feeding center for children in rural Haiti The Jeans were supposed to have at least two years to stay and work in the U S and hoped to eventually become citizens But they were described in March that Kevenson s work permit was ending April An ensuing court order left even multiple employers unsure if people could keep working Kevenson had gone to trucking school after arriving in the U S and fell hard for a Kenworth Related Articles Ukraine says it s poised to sign a key mineral information deal sought by the US Voters resoundingly backed paid sick leave Now lawmakers in states want to roll back the benefits The US administration has a new protocol for terminating international students legal status FACT FOCUS Trump touts his accomplishments at days but at times falls short on the facts Judge skeptical of Trump administration argument that federal courts can t review confines declaration The truck had taken him across immense swaths of America taught him about snow the dangers of high winds and truck stop etiquette His employer owns the truck but he understands it like no one else It s going to be my last week with my baby stated Jean his voice filled with sadness He looked miserable as he made his checks oil cables brakes Eventually he sat in the driver s seat took off his baseball cap and prayed as he constantly does before setting off Then he put his hat back on buckled his seat belt and drove away heading west on Journey Days later he got word that he could keep his job No one could tell him how long the reprieve would last Tim Sullivan can be reached at tsullivan ap org and http x com ByTimSullivan