Giving Compass' Take:

• James Fallows reports on a town in the Midwest that relies on immigrant labor to keep its meatpacking industry alive, despite a political sentiment that's often hostile to such workers.

• What can we do to protect immigrant workers rights around the country? It helps to share stories such as these to raise awareness on how vital their contribution to America is.

• Here's more on how we can teach immigrants and stand with them in solidarity.

Dodge City, KS, had long had an ethnically mixed population because of workers who arrived during its cattle drive and railroad heydays in the late 1800s and afterward. But its modern makeup began changing when the big packinghouses started arriving in the early 1980s. The two major operations that dominate Dodge City’s economy are those of Cargill Meat Solutions and National Beef ...

The employees in these factories are nearly all immigrants. In the 1980s, a substantial number were recent arrivals from Vietnam. Now they’re mainly Mexicans or from Central and South America, plus an increasing number of Somalis and other Africans, plus some Southeast Asians and others. Pay rates vary but are much above minimum wage. For instance, a current listing for a starting position in “beef harvesting” at Cargill offers $15.50 an hour, with medical and 401(k) benefits, in an area where the living costs are very low. The work can, obviously, be unpleasant and extremely hard.

“I can tell you that no matter what wages you paid, you are not going to find any reasonable number of ‘native-born’ Americans who will do those jobs,” stated a man who has been a manager for a large packinghouse in the area; he preferred not to be identified. “Your Anglo community is not going to work there, pretty much regardless of the wage. The entire meatpacking industry depends on immigrant labor, and always has.”

The syllogism we heard from him and many others was: Without the meatpacking industries, these towns in western Kansas would have withered. Without immigrants, mainly from Mexico, the meatpacking and feedlot industry would not exist.

Read the full article about the immigrants revitalizing a Kansas town by James Fallows at The Atlantic.