Immigration & Unaccompanied Minors: Minnesota Town at Center of Debate

Tucked away among the corn and soybean fields of southwest Minnesota, the city of Worthington looks in many ways like the epitome of small-town America.

Settled next to Lake Okabena, Worthington’s neighborhood streets are lined with maples, elms and cedar trees, and the brick downtown buildings are filled with local businesses.

There are plenty of jobs – in manufacturing, in bio-science, in health care – for the city’s 13,000 residents. A JBS meatpacking plant is the city’s largest employer.

But in 2019, during the last surge at the Southwest border, this small Minnesota city…