Although the region has the lowest share of foreign-born residents in the country, at fewer than four percent, and the lowest portion of Hispanic residents, whether born in the U.S. or elsewhere, the numbers have been growing. In Alabama and Mississippi, for instance, the Hispanic population more than doubled from 2000 to 2010.
That’s coincided with a difficult economy. Mississippi, once a major builder of ships and furniture, has seen an exodus of thousands of jobs in both industries to China and Mexico over the past two decades.
Mississippi’s manufacturers shed 75,738 jobs between 2000 and 2015, according to Manufacturers' News Inc, a publisher and compiler of industrial directories and databases.
“We have had way too many industries shut down and now they are in Brazil, they are in Mexico, they are in China,” said Fox.
Trump has said he will bring back American jobs “from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places."
He has proposed doing this by slapping tariffs on foreign goods and negotiating better trade deals. He has threatened a 35 percent tax on Ford Motor Corp vehicles made in Mexico that are brought back to the United States to be sold.
Most economists doubt Trump can revive manufacturing on its former scale in Mississippi or elsewhere, especially for unskilled workers. His threats also risk a trade war that could backfire by raising costs and hurting American jobs.
While trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement may have shifted some jobs abroad, the integration of global supply chains has also helped Tennessee stand out in the region with its booming auto industry, and drawn foreign companies like Airbus to Mobile, Alabama.
Job Struggles
Republican Party officials say Trump has strong support, especially in northwest Alabama where International Paper Co shut a 43-year-old plant in 2014, laying off 1,100 workers.