News from rural America.

Immigrants are driving rural population growth, especially in Texas, North Carolina, and Iowa, ICE agents are targeting immigrant labor groups along with their leaders and Louisiana's T-Rey's lures customers with hogshead cheese and boudin.

TRANSCRIPT

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

Since 2020, immigration has driven most of rural America's population growth.

A new Daily Yonder analysis shows nearly 300,000 immigrants have moved to rural communities.

University of New Hampshire demographer Kenneth Johnson says for agriculture-dependent counties, it made up almost two-thirds of the growth.

There was very modest population increase in the farm and manufacturing counties.

And here, immigration did play a fairly significant role.

After a decade of decline, starting with the 2008 recession, the rural population is rising.

But Johnson stresses that it varies a lot by region.

There is not one rural America.

There's really several rural Americas, and they're different from one another.

He points out that without immigrants, nearly six in ten rural counties would have continued losing population, and many came for jobs under work visas.

There's not enough domestic young people who would be willing to do these jobs.

Rural parts of Texas, North Carolina, and Iowa have seen the biggest boost from immigration.

Despite immigrants' importance to rural economies, ICE agents are targeting immigrant labor groups and their leaders, returning to tactics from the first Trump administration.

Ilana Newman explains.

Vermont's farmworker-led Migrant Justice first faced retaliation in 2016, when the group's Will Lambeck says two dozen organizers and rank-and-file members were arrested.

The people who were targeted by ICE, the community rallied to their defense, and people won their freedom, and then eventually, through the lawsuit, won reprieve from deportation.

But in April, Border Patrol arrested eight on a Franklin County farm, one of the largest immigration raids in Vermont history. will continue to show this is the best defense against deportation, is organizing with your neighbors and your community, knowing and defending your rights.

Lambeck says migrant justice will keep organizing.

I'm Ilana Newman.

On the North Shore of Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain, would-be English teacher Trey Herdy is instead teaching customers the ABCs of Cajun cooking.

Herdy is the owner of T-Ray's Boudin, who make the traditional boudin sausage of pork, rice, liver, and a lot of spices.

Herdy also sells hogshead cheese, very popular, very local delicacies.

I call it elevated gas station food, I guess.

You go to any gas station or any little store, they're probably got boudin that they're making there, or they got someone close by making it.

He says running a business is not much like teaching a public school English class, but that's where his heart is.

My operation is as small as it can be, and it's a lot of work, so make sure you wanna do it, and you love it.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.