Local mestizo and Spanish speaking workers in the town resented the presence of West Indians, who often held the best jobs, and because they spoke English were more able to get even service jobs in the US controlled company. In time the government of Honduras took up an anti-West Indian line, which was accompanied in many cases, by racist literature and cartoons that contrasted the African descended Caribbean workers with the mestizo Hondurans. In 1929 and again in 1934 immigration laws were hardened, making it difficult for English speakers or non-Hondurans to enter the country or remain there, and between 1930 and 1939, hundreds of Caribbean people were deported, greatly decreasing the English speaking and African descended population of the town.