Thomas Gounley

TGOUNLEY@NEWS-LEADER.COM

NOEL — In the far southwest corner of Missouri, one of President Donald Trump's recent executive orders has been a frequent topic of conversation.

The order stipulates the United States will not admit any immigrants or visa holders from seven countries — Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Yemen — for 90 days. It also bans all refugee admissions for 120 days, and refugees from Syria indefinitely.

"Everybody is talking about it," said Abdulkadir Abdullahi, a native of Somalia who came to the United States in 2009.

Abdullahi estimated 400 to 500 Somalians, along with some 60 to 70 Sudanese, now live in the town of Noel, which registered just over 1,800 residents in the 2010 Census. He makes a living acting as an interpreter between the residents and various community groups.

Nearly everyone else works for one employer. On Jan. 27, at the time Donald Trump signed the order, hundreds of Noel residents from affected countries were preparing for their shift at the chicken processing facility operated by Tyson Foods, which sits across the Elk River from downtown. Starting about 10 years ago, the plant's relatively high starting wages and promises of steady work changed the town's demographics, for the second time.

"The companies who produce food, like chicken, throughout the year they don't have layoffs," Abdullahi said, explaining Noel's main appeal to the newcomers.

On Thursday morning, inside a two-bedroom apartment a block from Main Street, 3-year-old Bedel Kayd and his 1-year-old brother Saadiq sat quietly while finishing off a bag of cheese puffs. With Abdullahi acting as translator, their mother, Mun Omer — a Somalian who arrived in the United States in October — said she initially thought Trump's order meant refugees would have to return to their home countries.

Omer said she was relieved, to a degree, to learn that isn't the case. But the reality still doesn't bode well for her father, who is trying to come to America.

"They did the paperwork, like medical and background check and screening," she said. "They were just waiting on the flight."

Trump has said the order is necessary to prevent "radical Islamic terrorists" from entering the nation.

Critics have argued the order amounts to a religious test for entering America. The seven countries are majority Muslim, and Trump told Christian Broadcasting Network last week that persecuted Christians would be given priority in applying for refugee status.

The Trump administration has noted that former President Barack Obama's administration originally identified the seven countries as countries of concern. Supporters of the order have said it doesn't amount to a religious test because there are other majority-Muslim countries besides the seven.

While rural America often is overwhelmingly white, in the past decade, the meatpacking industry has attracted an influx of refugees to select small towns. Along with Noel, sizable Somali communities can be found in places like Liberal, Kansas; Lexington, Nebraska; and Fort Morgan, Colorado.

A spokesman for Arkansas-based Tyson said the starting wage at the Noel facility is $11 an hour. Workers said employees can get a $1,200 bonus after 90 days. Most Somalis work the shift that begins at 4:30 p.m., Abdullahi said. Opportunities for overtime mean they may work until 2:30 a.m. or later.

In 2014, Tyson told the University of Missouri Extension the Noel facility employed about 1,600. Noel Mayor John Lafley said the plant has attracted two distinct waves of newcomers to town over the years. The first, he said, came in the 1990s, when Hispanics began taking jobs at Tyson.

Noel continues to have a large Hispanic presence. Nationally, however, immigration from Mexico has declined in recent years. Additionally, raids of several meatpacking plants in the mid-2000s by federal immigration agents are believed to have prompted the industry to look for ways to avoid undocumented workers.

In Noel, that meant a second shift in the town's demographics, as refugees from Somalia, along with individuals from Micronesia and Burma, began arriving about a decade ago. Refugees accepted into the United States can legally work.

People are not the only new additions to Noel. The mosque on Main Street is fairly inconspicuous, with purple curtains over the storefront windows. Abdullahi said it opened in 2009, and sometimes briefly houses new arrivals to town. Next door is the African Grocery Store, which offers goods like colorful head scarves and rugs, in addition to specialty food items. It opened in 2010, according to its owner; hot meals are served in the back.

The town's demographic shift also can be seen in local schools. Radio station KBIA reported in 2013 that the 401 students at Noel Elementary School spoke 11 languages, and 88 percent qualified for free or reduced price lunch — up from six languages and 49 percent in 2008.

From the Democratic Republic of Congo to Springfield

In October 2011, according to the Joplin Globe, about 130 Somali workers briefly walked off the job during a dispute over prayer time (Muslims pray five times a day). At the time, workers said management changes left them unable to take rotated breaks; Tyson said its religious accommodation policies hadn't changed, and that the matter "was rooted in language differences.”

Differences, language or otherwise, continue to be a factor in Noel.

Lydia Kaume, a nutrition specialist with the University of Missouri Extension, said one need the organization identified while working with the community in Noel was driver's education; accidents were being attributed to new arrivals' lack of knowledge about the rules of the road.

"It's an issue of not knowing what the expectations are," Kaume said generally of the community's challenges.

Several years ago, tires were slashed on more than a dozen of cars owned by Somalis, according to KBIA. More recently, three individuals are facing charges after a Somali woman said they yelled at her and used racial slurs before assaulting her at a city park in October, according to the Globe.

In an interview in City Hall, a converted railroad station, Mayor Lafley voiced frustration with Somali residents. He said they generally keep to themselves and, in his opinion, have failed to assimilate, unlike the Hispanics.

Lafley said the refugees "want to practice their Sharia law here, and that's one thing the city won't tolerate." Asked to explain, he said men in the community don't treat women well.

Lafley said the city doesn't have enough housing for the newcomers. As a result, he said, Somali residents have taken to living in commercial buildings, or live with numerous unrelated individuals in a single home, both in violation of city ordinance. He also said they tend to not clean up their property.

Lafley said he feels Tyson should be doing more to help, and couldn't name any reason he expected the current situation would improve in the future.

"A lot of people aren't happy because their little town is turned into a third-world country," he said.

He acknowledged it was likely the feeling of alienation goes both ways.

"When they get together on Main Street to go to the mosque, it kind of intimidates some people," he said. "You get a bunch of white people milling around, and it probably intimidates them."

Tyson, asked if Trump's executive order could impact its ability to staff the plant in Noel, referred a reporter to the North American Meat Institute. In a statement, the organization said it hopes the Trump administration "will give careful consideration to the ramifications policy changes like these can have on our businesses and on foreign born workers who are eager to build new lives in America through the jobs our companies can offer."

Tom Super, vice president of communications for the National Chicken Council, told the News-Leader that "workforce needs are a constant challenge in our line of work, but we don't foresee any negative impact on chicken production in the near future from this."

They came to the United States from Asia as refugees. They ended up in southwest Missouri

On Thursday, one Somali woman said she had arrived in the United States in 2006, and came to Noel in 2008 after Tyson restructured operations at the plant she worked at in Emporia, Kansas. She said she became a citizen in 2013.

The woman, who declined to give her name, said she has two sons and a daughter who live in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. A third son died last February, she said; she was unable to afford to travel to Africa for the funeral.

The woman said her daughter had been cleared to come to America, and is scheduled to make the trip this November. While that's well past the period currently affected by Trump's order, the woman said she's unsure if her daughter could be affected.

The woman said she is "waiting, because America has a Constitution."

"After three months, we see what he says," she said of the president.