Hispanics: An Economic Engine in the Heart of the Panhandle
By Uriel Escobar, urescoba@ttu.edu
Before sunrise, pastures and endless plains of the West Texas Panhandle are filled with thousands of immigrant workers rolling up their sleeves and strapping on their boots.
They milk cows at large dairies, process meat and maintain pipelines that support the state’s oil economy.
Without them, economists warn, the region’s backbone industries would collapse.
“Like any ag and ag-heavy area of the country, we are heavily dependent upon immigrant labor,” said Benjamin Powell, an economics professor at Texas Tech University. “A decrease in migration will negatively impact these industries.”
From Dalhart to Dumas to Hereford, known as the “Beef Capital of the World,” the economic footprint of Hispanic immigrants is undeniable and cannot be ignored.
Not just as laborers, but as taxpayers, consumers and emerging entrepreneurs. Many undocumented immigrants come from mixed-status families, but their impact is substantial across the state.
In the diagram , the counties that are darkest blue have the most Hispanic residents.
More than 70% of crop workers and meatpacking employees nationwide are Hispanic, and many are foreign-born.
Moore County, home to the massive JBS beef plant in Cactus, is made up of a population that is more than 50% immigrant. The plant — and the town — reflect the vital role these undocumented workers play in the local economy.
“Those industries would produce less,” Powell said of a scenario without immigrants. “They would be higher cost and employ more capital, and as a result, our products would be less competitive with the rest of the world.”
Backbone of the economy
Undocumented immigrants in Texas contributed an estimated $4.9 billion in state and local taxes, most of that through property and sales taxes. In 2019, Hispanic Texans held $162.4 billion in spending power. Immigrant-owned businesses generated more than $10.8 billion in business income statewide, according to a 2022 report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
For small towns like Dalhart and Dumas, where populations have steadily become more Hispanic over the past two decades, the influx has not only supported local industries but also revived rural economies that might otherwise be in decline.
“I can’t speak specifically to those communities,” Powell noted, “but in general, immigration creates economic gains for both the immigrants themselves and those who employ them and who consume the goods and services that are produced in those industries.”
Powell acknowledged the conversation around immigration in conservative areas like the Panhandle is complicated, and not always based on economics.
“In Texas, there’s more of a fear of how migration might change Texas from being Texas,” he said. “But this is actually a misconception. The people who move here, including from other states, self-select into Texas. They tend to vote red and own guns at higher rates than native-born Texans.”
Even though these communities bear the brunt of the economic risk, Hispanic immigrants faced the harshest impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a surge in deaths, particularly among the undocumented.
Immigrants were ineligible for many forms of government support, despite continuing to perform the hard labor that kept agricultural and energy plants running.
Sixty percent of immigrant Latinos experienced job or income loss due to the pandemic. Despite these setbacks, Hispanic workers played a leading role in the recovery. Their labor fueled job growth and kept essential industries afloat, according to a 2021 Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas study.
In places like the Panhandle, that contribution is already being made… quietly, daily and before dawn.
