Wyoming’s economy has a problem: The population is shrinking rapidly. In less than five years, the number of deaths could eclipse births. That could make it hard for rural towns to keep enough families to keep schools open or enough youthful entrepreneurs to start new businesses.

But there is one bright spot.

Between 2020 and 2025, “rural Wyoming gained about 8,400 new residents during that time, and nearly 30% of that growth, which equals around 2,600 people, came from international migration,” said The Daily Yonder rural data journalist Sarah Melotte. She’s been covering how immigration is staunching rural America’s population decline in states like Kentucky and Wyoming. “So a huge part of Wyoming’s rural population growth is coming from people who were born outside the U.S.”

But as Wyoming adopts more hardline immigration policies, some immigrants are choosing to leave.

Case in point: 27-year-old Ana Castro. She came to Jackson at age seven. Growing up, she got straight A’s and started volunteering in high school.

“I joined the Rotary Club. I was actually the Rotary student-of-the-month at one point,” Castro said over Zoom from her new apartment in Mexico City. “I joined the Latina Leadership program, which also has connections to the University of Wyoming. I joined different student organizations. I also was dabbling in immigration work at the time, and I was just very passionate about social causes.”

But Castro didn’t consider herself a Wyomingite until she got a full Hathaway scholarship to the University of Wyoming. There she earned a degree in criminal justice and eventually a job working for Laramie Main Street, a nonprofit advocating for local businesses. She helped found the Wyoming chapter of Juntos, an immigrant advocacy group, and sat on the boards of both the Laramie Plains Civic Center and the Laramie Public Art Coalition.

All the while, she was trying to get legal citizenship. Both of her sisters are legal citizens – one was born in the U.S. and the other married a citizen – and her mom has permanent residency because she was able to claim amnesty. That option was available to Ana as well but required testifying about traumatic events. Her mental health issues made this impossible.

“ I tried every single avenue to try to fix my status, and I exhausted all my options,” said Castro.

After Trump’s election, Castro began feeling unsafe. Especially when friends warned of ICE sightings in Laramie.

“I started to get really paranoid,” Castro said. “In the spring, we had a few incidents where immigration, whether it was a rumor – and there were a couple times where it wasn’t a rumor and immigration was present in Laramie. I remember I had to pack up all my stuff from the office at Main Street and [my boss] took me home one time. [Another time] my coworker drove me home.”

Castro had a mental health break. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.

“I remember laying in bed and just thinking, ‘Okay, I think I have to leave,’ in order to protect myself and in order to be able to move forward in a way that I felt was dignified,” said Castro through tears.

Her community in Laramie threw her a going away party.

Three months later, Castro flew to Mexico City, population 9 million. She hadn’t lived in a city larger than 30,000 since she was a child. She left behind all her belongings and her beloved dog, Paco, taking only two small suitcases and a carry-on. It was a difficult transition. For the first month, she lived with an aunt and uncle she barely remembered.

“I remember sobbing and saying, ‘You don’t understand because I had my future planned out. I had my entire future planned out in this beautiful community that I adored in the state that I loved and was so proud to be from.’”

Castro thought that future would include growing the Laramie arts and culture community. She’d been doing that by teaching pottery at the Laramie Plains Civic Center.

There, Jessica Brauer, the director of the center, went on a search to find signs of Castro. She made a beeline for the pottery studio where Castro spent much of her time.

“I’m curious if there’s any of her pieces left here,” Brauer said.

She looked over the name tags of artists on the shelves, but Castro’s name was gone. All of her artwork had been taken away, too.

“She taught workshops in here with Laramie Public Art. She made her own art that she sold,” Brauer said.

In a recent op-ed she wrote for WyoFile, Brauer said people like Castro are leaving because Wyoming is sending a message of cruelty.

“I think when Governor Gordon announced his support of ICE, I think that was probably a moment in which Ana and many people around the state said, ‘Well, that changes the risk I’m willing to take to stay in this place.’”

Brauer said that message is hurting nonprofits. For instance, she’s not getting as many volunteers these days and not as many organizations are partnering with hers.

“That weight is on my shoulders and it’s impossibly unsustainable.”

Rural data journalist Sarah Melotte said last year Albany County would have lost 158 people but instead it grew by 13 people, thanks to a foreign-born influx. Other counties have benefitted, too, Platte County perhaps most of all.

 ”In the five-year period between 2020 and 2025, Platte County didn’t see all that much population change as a net change. However, between 2020 and 2025, they saw almost 80 new residents from international immigration. So they would’ve lost population, and that’s not an insignificant number, considering this is a small rural county,” Melotte said.

Goshen County is gaining almost all of its growth from an immigrant influx. But Melotte said recent immigration policies may be causing a chilling effect for these counties.

“Population decline can hollow out essential workers from rural communities and decrease the tax base that towns rely on to keep lights on, to pay administrators. There are fewer nurses, there are fewer teachers,” she said.

According to U.S. census data, 26% of the state’s service jobs are held by immigrants, compared to 16% of locals. Immigrants are also twice as likely as locals to fill construction jobs. Same goes for jobs in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector. Plus, the state’s immigrant population is quite a bit younger. While only 26% of locals are working age, 44% of immigrants are.

“I think a lot of these jobs that normally would be held by Wyoming citizens are being held by immigrants,” said Platte County Representative Jeremy Haroldson, a founding member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus that supports Trump’s deportation policies.

“When we pay out a wage to someone who’s not keeping that money in our communities or in our economy, we lower the level of our pond,” Haroldson said. “We are now at a point across the nation where we’ve watched the immigration workforce lower the level in the pond. I understand they’ve got families they’re feeding, they’ve got loved ones they’re taking care of, and I’m not at all upset about that. But I do understand the economic driver that it does for our entire economy, that is very detrimental.”

Still, Haroldson is sympathetic to Castro’s situation.

“If you consider yourself a Wyomingite, that’s awesome,” he said. “Let’s make the paperwork to make you a Wyomingite. That said, we also need to make sure that it isn’t so hard for these individuals to do that that’s an impossibility.”

It might be too late for Castro. She found an apartment, is working remotely for Laramie Main Street and making friends.

“I mean, here I have free healthcare,” Castro said. “I’m free. I have so much peace and calm.”

Castro has no plans to try to return to Wyoming.