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The Documentary: Red State refugees

Cactus Texas

25/08/2020 GMT

Red State refugees

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Red State refugees

Can refugees save the small, conservative town of Cactus, Texas?

President Trump has dramatically reduced the numbers of refugees arriving in the United States, vowing to protect native-born Americans’ interests. But there’s a catch: some of the nation’s reddest communities may not survive without them. Katy Long will tell the story of one small, poor, conservative town — Cactus, Texas — where hundreds of refugees have settled, drawn by the well-paid jobs in meatpacking, shifting the demographics of the community, shaping the refugees’ perspective and saving the town from disaster. But for all that they represent change, Katy sees that in the longer-term some of the refugees’ views and values are more in line with small conservative towns than liberal cities.
 
Katy visited Cactus in 2018 and now, in the midst of a pandemic which continues to ravage this part of Texas, she catches up remotely with some of those she first met then. She’ll start with the elementary school Principal, TJ Fundenburg, the son of a local blacksmith who cheerfully admits that he didn’t know where Burma was before Burmese students started arriving at his school.
 
Cactus is a town which would have died altogether, taking the meatpacking plant and the jobs there with it, had it not been for these refugees. And so underlying this story is a question: if you drastically reduce immigration and stop refugee resettlement – as the Governor of Texas has recently announce – what happens to these towns, to the meatpacking industry, and to the idea of beef-and-oil-Texas?

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