AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The economy in rural America has a problem. Shrinking populations are making it hard for small towns to stay open for business. One bright spot helping stabilize populations has been international migration. But as the Trump administration continues to push hard-line immigration policies, some immigrants, fearing for their safety, feel like they have to leave. Wyoming Public Radio's Melodie Edwards reports.
MELODIE EDWARDS, BYLINE: In 1993, Ana Castro's mom brought her to Jackson, Wyoming, at age 7. Growing up, she got straight A's and started volunteering in high school.
ANA CASTRO: I joined the Rotary Club. I was actually the Rotary student of the month at one point. And I was just very passionate about social causes.
EDWARDS: At the University of Wyoming in Laramie, she got a full scholarship and earned a degree in criminal justice. She eventually got a job working for Laramie Main Street, a nonprofit advocating for local businesses. She helped found the Wyoming chapter of Juntos, an immigrant advocacy group, and sat on the boards of both the local civic center and the art coalition.
Sarah Melotte is a rural data journalist with the Daily Yonder. She says Castro isn't an outlier. Since 2020...
SARAH MELOTTE: Rural Wyoming gained about 8,400 new residents during that time, and nearly 30% of that growth came from international migration.
EDWARDS: She says last year, Albany County, where Castro lived, would have lost population, but instead it grew thanks to a foreign-born influx. But Melotte says recent immigration policies may be causing a chilling effect.
MELOTTE: Population decline can hollow out essential workers from rural communities, decrease the tax base towns rely on to keep lights open and to pay administrators. There are fewer nurses. There are fewer teachers.
EDWARDS: A quarter of Wyoming's service jobs are held by immigrants - almost 13,000. And they're twice as likely as locals to fill construction jobs - over 8,000 jobs. But that makes some people here uncomfortable. State Representative Jeremy Haroldson is a founding member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus that supports Trump's deportation policies. The county he represents actually benefited most from immigrant influx, but he's concerned those wages are leaving Wyoming.
JEREMY HAROLDSON: When we pay out - so in this case, a wage - to someone who is not keeping that money in our communities or in our economy, we lower the level of our pond.
EDWARDS: Still, Haroldson is sympathetic to Castro's situation.
HAROLDSON: You consider yourself a Wyomingite. That's awesome. Let's make the paperwork to make you a Wyomingite. With that said, we also need to make sure that it isn't so hard for these individuals to do that that it's an impossibility.
EDWARDS: Castro, brought here illegally by her mother, never had the legal right to live in the U.S. For years, she tried every avenue to get her citizenship but kept hitting roadblocks.
JESS BRAUER: So this is the pottery studio.
EDWARDS: Jess Brauer is the director of the Laramie Plains Civic Center, where Ana Castro once taught pottery classes.
BRAUER: I'm curious if there's any of her pieces left here.
EDWARDS: Yeah. Let's go see.
Brauer looks over the name tags of artists on the shelves, but Castro's name is gone. She says people like Castro are leaving because Wyoming is sending a message of cruelty.
BRAUER: When Governor Gordon announced his support of ICE, I think that was probably a moment in which Ana and many people around the state said, well, that changes the ability of risk I'm willing to take to stay in this place.
EDWARDS: Castro says, when her state started cooperating with ICE, she got scared. She decided to self-deport. She flew to Mexico City, population 9 million. She hadn't lived in a city larger than 30,000 since she was a child. At first, she just wanted to come home - to Wyoming.
CASTRO: And I remember sobbing and saying, you don't understand because I had my future planned out. I had my entire future planned out in this beautiful community that I adored (crying) in the state that I loved and was so proud to be from.
EDWARDS: It's been eight months, and Castro is starting to settle in. She rented an apartment, is taking Spanish classes and works remotely. She has no plans to return to Wyoming.
For NPR News, I'm Melodie Edwards in Laramie, Wyoming. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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