Town in Kansas opened doors to Somali refugees-Then a group of Trump supporters plotted to kill them
When the Somalis first began arriving, back in 2006, they had been hailed as the vanguard of a more diverse and tolerant era. “America’s future arrived early in Garden City,” declared the Wichita Eagle. NPR described the town of 27,000 as a hopeful bellwether—“a meatpacking town that embraces its new cultures.” The Somalis joined earlier waves of Cambodian, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Hispanic refugees drawn to the region’s beef-packing plants, and the town had gone out of its way to welcome the newcomers, rezoning lots for new housing, providing city services, and incorporating the workers into the life of the community. On the town’s main street, Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal Church, Bad Boyz Boxing Club, and Lam Gia Thai Restaurant all shared a parking lot. The new residents provided cheap and uncomplaining labor for the beef industry, a source of tax revenue for the town, and a steady stream of customers for local businesses. “Garden City saw ethnic diversity as a commodity they could exploit,” says Donald Stull, a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Kansas who led a study for the Ford Foundation of the town’s shifting demographics.
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The Crusaders, a terrorist group formed by (from left) Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright, and Patrick Stein, thought of themselves as patriots resisting a Muslim takeover of the United States. Bo Rader/Wichita Eagle/TNS/Getty (x3)
The Crusaders didn’t see it that way. Curtis Allen, who had served in Iraq and returned with PTSD, sank into a hatred of Muslims. He worked at a tire shop in his hometown of Ashland for a while before drifting west to Liberal, where he fell in with a series of militia groups. He also met Wright, who had gone from working at a meatpacking plant to selling mobile homes to house the influx of new immigrants. Last summer, when Allen planted a MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN sign in front of his mobile home, his neighbors—most of them Hispanic immigrants—couldn’t help but notice. Allen told them he was angry at Muslims. He allegedly voiced outrage over the Muslim terror attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and was angry that “Crooked Hillary” was “openly running on disarming the American people.” He told another neighbor that the Somalis at the National Beef packing plant in Liberal were “taking all our jobs” and needed to be gotten rid of.
What his neighbors didn’t know was that Allen was getting ready to put his words into action.
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