Thread: {Sob} Immigration wars squeeze Iowa town

By David Lienemann, AP


Immigration wars squeeze Iowa town



Enlarge By David Lienemann, AP

A storefront window on Main Street indicates in Spanish that a new "minisuper" or small grocery store will open there to attract some of the growing Hispanic population in Marshalltown, Iowa.




By Sharon Cohen, Associated Press
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — Everyone knew they were there, doing dirty and dangerous work in the massive meatpacking plant. They had come a long way — more than 1,000 miles, from impoverished rural Mexico to the lush corn country of the Midwest. Some folks looked the other way, others offered a helping hand.
Then federal agents swept through, and the complicated bargain that Marshalltown had made with illegal immigration was laid bare.

This town in the heart of middle America that has been transformed — even rejuvenated — by immigration stands as a symbol of the agonizing predicaments and pressures faced by many communities today.

"You're caught in the middle," says Mayor Gene Beach. "It's a matter of enforcing the immigration laws while recognizing families are trying to improve their life. How do you balance that? Someone is going to be gored."

In Marshalltown, that someone might be the meatpacking worker caught up in a raid. Or the soccer coach who harbored a secret. Or the police detective unable to solve the mystery of a Mexican man found dead on a busy road.


"If you've got a leaky hot water heater, you've got to fix the leak before the mess," Police Chief Lon Walker says. "We've got the leak at the border. The mess is in Marshalltown."

Twice in the last nine months, federal agents have swooped down on illegal immigrants at the town's largest employer, the giant Swift & Co. pork processing plant. More than 100 people were arrested as part of a national crackdown.

Francisco Vargas Acosta was among those apprehended last December. It was, he says, the second time in a decade that he was arrested at the plant. The first time, he was a teen, and returned to Mexico voluntarily. Now a 29-year-old father of two young sons, he is fighting deportation.

"I'm not a bad guy," Vargas says, sitting on a sofa in his living room decorated with family photos and porcelain knickknacks. "I just want to stay here for my kids. There's more of a future here. In Mexico, there's nothing."

Detective Dane Zuercher understands that desperation, he can even sympathize a bit, but he says he can't condone breaking the law.

"We all want to better ourselves, we want better things for our kids. That's great," he says. "But you can't commit a crime to make that happen. That's where we have to draw the line."

Marshalltown finds itself squeezed by both sides in the immigration divide.

The town can't ignore the presence of illegal immigrants — whether it's the raids or the cases that pile up on Zuercher's desk that involve people who cross the border and buy or use stolen identities to land jobs.

And the town can't thrive without immigrants. The dramatic growth in the Hispanic population — from a few hundred in 1990 to perhaps as much as 20% of the 26,000 residents — has pumped new blood into this aging rural community.

"The leaders know darn well this town would really be suffering if not for the influx of refugees," says Mark Grey, a University of Northern Iowa professor and immigration expert. "They can wax nostalgic for the good old days, but the good old days are gone."

Marshalltown still has the Ben Franklin on Main Street, the Fourth of July celebrations, the cozy Maid-Rite diner, the grand 19th-century courthouse, places and events that define small-town America.

But life on this Grant Wood landscape also has been shaped by new sights and sounds: Bilingual signs in groceries and banks. Spanish-language Masses. Students learning Spanish and English. A Latinos Unidos soccer league. An annual Hispanic Heritage festival.

Not everyone likes these changes, but Marshalltown hasn't followed the path of communities that have tried to punish landlords or businesses that associate with illegal immigrants.

It has, instead, tried to learn why people come here. Several times, town leaders have signed on to join Grey, the professor, to travel to Villachuato, a dusty, poor farming village in Mexico that is the source of many of Marshalltown's immigrants.

"I wanted them to understand the economic conditions that drive people out of Mexico," says Grey, director of the Iowa Center for Immigration Leadership and Integration.

Houses with dirt floors (and without electricity), unpaved roads and people desperate for work all provided compelling evidence. But the trip also revealed something else to Walker, the police chief, as he questioned villagers:

"I said, 'How many of you have been to Marshalltown?' All the hands went up," he says. "'How many of you did it legally?' All the hands went down."

No one knows how many immigrants are here illegally, but Marshalltown is in the same bind as many other rural communities across the heartland — especially those with meatpacking plants where high turnover creates a constant demand for labor.

It's a story of survival — on both sides of the border.

Marshalltown wants workers for its jobs, buyers for its homes, children for its schools. The Mexican immigrants want a better life, period. And if it means paying someone to sneak across the border, making a treacherous journey, and risking arrest, so be it.

Not everyone, of course, comes here illegally, and Marshalltown has taken steps to smooth the way. Several years ago, the police helped produce a video in Spanish that explained everything from tornado sirens to parking laws. It also included a warning: Police don't take bribes.

Many of the early racial tensions have faded — Walker says he no longer gets calls asking, "What are you going to do about the Mexican problem?" — but they haven't totally disappeared.

"You don't take a 99% Caucasian community, add 15-20% of people who are of a different ethnicity and race and expect it to become a happy place overnight," says Ken Anderson, president of the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce. "There's that element of fear on both sides."

But there has also been a growing acceptance as the first wave of immigrants — young, mostly single men who worked at Swift, crowded into houses on quiet streets and sometimes drank too much — gave way to families. They bought homes, put their kids in school and opened restaurants, groceries and dozens of other businesses.

"When you have any minority community come in ... there's going to be a learning curve," says Mike Schlesinger, publisher of the Marshalltown Times-Republican. "That rapidly escalated when families came in."

A decade ago, Schlesinger had to abandon a Spanish-language newspaper because it couldn't get Anglo advertisers. But several months ago, a new version, Voz, started publishing.

Still, a cultural divide remains and no one sees that more clearly than the police. Walker says there's a "basic mistrust" of law enforcement among many Mexican immigrants. It doesn't help that the force has no Hispanic officers — despite recruitment efforts — or anyone fluent in Spanish.

These suspicions can be an obstacle, as Zuercher discovered while working a troubling case last year.

A young Hispanic man was struck and killed by a car. His wife flagged down a ride and went home, leaving his body in the road, without reporting the incident. Both were illegal immigrants.

Despite a thorough investigation, Zuercher was never able to figure out what happened.

"That just scares me — a human being was struck by a car in front of a young child, his wife and other bystanders — and they leave the scene," he says. "I don't understand it."

The immigrants, needing identification, often engage in identity theft; in fact, when authorities raided the Swift plant last winter, several workers were accused of identity theft or fraud.

Such cases are time consuming and frustrating, Zuercher says: One man called from California wanting to know how he could owe back taxes on wages earned in Marshalltown when he'd never been here. In another, someone in town had used the same name and Social Security number as six or seven other people around the country.

Not long ago, Zuercher arrested a longtime Marshalltown resident for having a bogus ID. "Do you realize," a colleague asked, "you just arrested our kid's soccer coach?"

It doesn't matter how long someone has lived here, he says, or whether he has a house, a family or a job.

"We can't pick and choose," he says. "I can't turn a blind eye."

Neither can his fellow townspeople, anymore.

Last year, dozens of high school students, most of them Hispanic, walked out of school to protest a proposed law that would make it harder for illegal immigrants to work in the country, and pro- and anti-immigration crowds rallied at Marshalltown's courthouse.

When Armando Torres passed by, he says some protesters screamed at him to go back to Mexico.

"They don't know if you're legal or not," says Torres, an American citizen. "You feel bad, you go home and you try to forget about it."

At the factory where he works, he says, someone tacked up a letter on a bulletin board, comparing illegal immigrants to dirty birds who multiply and wreak havoc.

"I understand that a lot of people are working without papers, breaking the law," he adds. "Can they tell me how many Americans break the law?"

Illegal immigrants are not stealing, he says. "They're trying to work and feed their families."

Some of those families end up in a bind. Elizabeth Castellanos, who is 9, fears she'll have to leave Iowa because her father, who is being held in Colorado, is facing deportation. "This is the place I was born and this is the place I belong," she says. "I don't want to leave to go to Mexico. I wouldn't feel comfortable there."

Elizabeth and her mother sought help at St. Mary's Catholic Church, which has a large Hispanic flock. It's the same place many families turned to after their relatives were arrested at Swift.

"People were wondering, 'How are we going to feed our families because the breadwinner was gone or the job was gone,"' says Sister Christine Feagan, director of the church's Hispanic ministry. "There also was the pressure of families in Mexico who were counting on the workers to send them money."

More than $100,000 in donations poured in to help the families, most of them from elsewhere in Iowa and the country.

After the December raid — one of six at Swift plants across the country — federal agents returned in July. They made five more arrests, including a union representative and a human resources manager who allegedly coached an illegal immigrant on how to apply for a job using a fake name and documents.

These were not the first such raids. Ten years before, more than 140 people were arrested for immigration violations at the same plant. In the decade between, though, illegal immigrants were hiding in plain sight.

Since the police don't enforce federal immigration laws, "if you were simply working or living here, you felt pretty safe," Walker says.

That ended last December for Francisco Vargas Acosta.

He wasn't surprised when federal agents raided the plant. He had heard rumors. But he had no choice, he says: He needed the work — he earned $13.25 an hour — to help support his family.

His lawyers are trying to get him a work permit under a special program open to those who've lived here 10 years consecutively. They are also fighting his deportation, arguing it would create a hardship on his family.

"He's been working hard," says Megan Lantz, one of his lawyers, noting that his wife, also a Swift employee, is a legal resident. "Are we really the type of place that wants to prohibit them from being together?"

For Vargas, this place has been home nearly half his life. He followed family here, attended school briefly and now has a house where he and his wife want to raise their sons.

He waits now to see if that will happen.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted 11h 2m ago
Updated 9h 31m ago E-mail | Save | Print |
To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.

Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.
You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register

Comments: (99)Showing: Newest first Oldest first


ruben j wrote: 5m ago
jjjjohhhnn wrote: 14m ago
MikeSpeaks
You are dead on with your questions. On why we don't make Mexico better, I am told that there are a lot of kickbacks involved with working in Mexico. It's extremely tough to run a business. Also, the PRI was voted out due to new money that created businesses. This money came mostly from illegal immigrants, as best I can learn.


So, illegal immigration is putting money in Mexico that is beyond the usual systems of patronage, and many officials want to encourage that. Also, keeping people content by allowing them to work here allows the usual political mischief to continue. That is opinion, not fact, on my part. However, I doubt that I am far off.


Here is something I know that speaks to your argument. Some soybean farmers in Indiana could not work profitably in the US. So they began operations in Brazil and learned they could buy a lot of land and farm it effectively. They found to their surprise that they had the pick of employees because they paid on time and worked people fairly. There is a lot that is right in the US, and our elected officials need to export those values as much as we are importing workers in Latin America.



================================================== ==============================
i don't think the quality of the worker should NOT be judged by race!!......

Agricultural should be outsourced to south America they are the only ones who will do that kinda work
so it would be very wise for are farmers that demand cheap labor relocate to poor south American country's
IT Would solve this problem


Recommend | Report Abuse

jjjjohhhnn wrote: 14m ago
Jakebpg: I was told the orchard paid $7 which isn't much but it 's more than welfare pays. You seem to support my point that Americans are unwilling to do some work.

As for healthcare, friends tell me that some hospitals are being abused. However, the numbers are that 2 percent of healthcare costs are for illegal immigrants. If that guy is as you describe him, he's a stinking joke. If he's doing drugs, from his bet, the hospital is a joke for letting it happen.

Our differences are based on at least 2 realities. The illegals here are cutting the grass at 107defF, and they are busting their butts to meet obligations. There kits are never, never a problem.

However, the house next door is the same nationality. Their music blasts all day and all night, they throw garbage in the parking lot, well, you know where I am going. My neighbors and I invited our alderman to visit, she got out of the call and called the police with a peace disturbance for the loud music. Then she called the health department. Everyone made it clear that no one would shut up until the junk stopped.

So I agree that freedom doesn't mean a free lunch.


Recommend | Report Abuse

Jakebpg wrote: 17m ago
jjjjohhhnn wrote: 25m ago
They the laws create a box that is the only direction people can go in, then blames them for the fraud, deception, and evasion they have forced them to participate in.
================================================== ==================================

I don't know what world you're living in but nobody has forced them to do anything and to think so is just ignorant they can come here legally and will be accepted. Your numbers are so far of I'd like to see references to where that is stated. Talk to people in the border towns and see how many hospitals are left because they are closing down because of bankruptcy.


Recommend | Report Abuse

MikeSpeaks wrote: 18m ago
jjjohhnn here is the truth!

They only are 2% of healthercare?

When they need health care they just pop into the emergency room. Nobody logs them as illegals but we pay for them. Too far to got just call 911 and they pick them up. And no one asks are you an illegal? I have seen it.
Housing all they need is a stolen social security number and they are good to go.
They fill up the public schools and we pay for it. By the way I dont know many landlords that can run a social security number in a few minutes. Even if they could all it they could fine out was it the number was real.
food stamps are the same way.
Here in San Antonio every year people like you have drives to get school uniforms and material for the poor i.g the illegals most of them can't every speak english.
What about the crimes they do here? Drunk and driving. It as been in the papers all over the United States.
How about the three kids shot down in NJ. Just another illegal. Rape upon rape. Just read the news papers
Wake up!

-------------------------------------
jjjjohhhnn wrote:
Jakepbg, services to illegal immigrants are 2 percent of healthcare costs in the US. They are not eligible for section 8 housing if the landlord takes 10 seconds to run the social security number.

There are hospitals and people getting stuck with unreasonable costs.

Too much of immigration policy is directed toward someone who works illegally here or works for nothing elsewhere. They the laws create a box that is the only direction people can go in, then blames them for the fraud, deception, and evasion they have forced them to participate in.

When will you get it through your head: the alternatives for many are extreme poverty or participation in marco mafias and other clandestine activity. Stop criminalizing honest labor.





Recommend | Report Abuse

ruben j wrote: 25m ago
myths

1 illegals mow all our yards population of 302,758,280 12 million people thats a yard a second

2 illegals do jobs Americans won't do ? umm hmmmm Us Unemployment 4.3%

3 US population of 302,758,280........ illegal are concentrated in certain parts of certain states
so i highly doubt they drive the economy or do jobs Americans won't do !!
4 using Racism for not getting your way blacks in the south where treated like trash
they where hung and sold as slaves !! Hispanics demand they get sympathy for crossing our
borders

5 Not all Latinos support ILLEGALS My Grate Grandfather came From MEXICO
WE NEED LAWS and borders it does not matter if you are a Good person
stand in line don't disrespect our laws its not hard

http://www.dontspeakforme.org/



Recommend | Report Abuse

Jakebpg wrote: 31m ago
jjjjohhhnn wrote: 4m ago
I learned that in Oregon and Washington an association of orchard growers tried to train 13,000 legal low-income Americans to work the fruit harvest. Less than 50 people accepted the work.
================================================== =========================================

Yes and just how much were they willing to pay? The usual 4.50 to 5.00 dollars an hour or less. Farmers are not required by law to pay minimum wage they are permitted to pay less then the minimum wage. So if you were in that group of 13 thousand would you work for the 5 dollars or less an hour? Do you really think that anyone can live off of a job that pays five dollars an hour? Who is paying for all of the medical bills of the illegal alien workers, let me answer that one for you it's the citizens of this nation that's who through increased costs in insurance and increased costs to hospitals and doctors to make up for all of the illegals that don't pay but can still afford to send billions of dollars back to their country of origin.

3 weeks ago I had to go for medical diagnostic tests at the local hospital. The main reception area was filled with Latinos that couldn't speak English and were waiting for their turn to see a doctor. When I signed is when I found out that most of these people were illegal aliens waiting for check ups or because they were sick and couldn't pay a doctor to check them so they flood the hospital every day. Some of them actually got angry at the women behind the desk because I was called right away after signing in, I barely had enough time to sit down when they called me. I had an appointment that was setup by my doctor for these tests. This is only one of many incidents that I've noticed over the years. The worst was in 04 when I was in for a major surgery and the other person in the room that I was in was here illegally taking up bed space that was needed by some one that actually need it. This person was selling drugs out of the room, was constantly smoking in the room and when I complained about it was told there was nothing they could do about until they had proof that this guy was faking it. They couldn't even move me to another room because they were at capacity. My nurse told me that this person was there for over two weeks before I arrived there. I had to put up with for three days before they told him they could find nothing wrong with him medically and told him that he should see a psychologist to see why he was feeling the way he was and discharged him that day. He didn't want to go saying how sick he was and no one to come and get him not to mention that he had no place to live either. They gave him a sheet of paper that had the names of shelters for homeless people and the name of a psychologist to see and sent him packing.

Health care has become so costly because of the illegal population that a lot of American families can no longer afford the cost of insurance to pay for it.


Recommend | Report Abuse

jjjjohhhnn wrote: 39m ago
MikeSpeaks
You are dead on with your questions. On why we don't make Mexico better, I am told that there are a lot of kickbacks involved with working in Mexico. It's extremely tough to run a business. Also, the PRI was voted out due to new money that created businesses. This money came mostly from illegal immigrants, as best I can learn.

So, illegal immigration is putting money in Mexico that is beyond the usual systems of patronage, and many officials want to encourage that. Also, keeping people content by allowing them to work here allows the usual political mischief to continue. That is opinion, not fact, on my part. However, I doubt that I am far off.


Here is something I know that speaks to your argument. Some soybean farmers in Indiana could not work profitably in the US. So they began operations in Brazil and learned they could buy a lot of land and farm it effectively. They found to their surprise that they had the pick of employees because they paid on time and worked people fairly. There is a lot that is right in the US, and our elected officials need to export those values as much as we are importing workers in Latin America.


Recommend | Report Abuse

jjjjohhhnn wrote: 49m ago
Sherry Madison, before you talk about Latin America, you should visit. Be sure to leave the tourist districts. Most people cannot afford weapons and most do not participate in the violence, except as a victim if they try to engage in the campaigning and activity I do before every major election.

It takes only 1 to 3 percent of a population in gang activity, mafia activity, or narcotics to make a country extremely violent. Leftists in Colombia primarily target farmers, and they use syringes to make a land mine that cannot be detected with a mind detector. The usual victim is a peasant farmer's young child. Costa Rica maintains order against narcotics by maintaining a very tough and very alert police force.

If you really care about violence, stop slandering people. Instead, make it very clear to your friends and associates that anyone who uses meth or cocaine is not a friend or associate, and any business whose principal employees are involved has closed its doors in your eyes. Our western vices are undermining every democracy in tropical Latin America and creating a stream of illegal refugees to other countries..


Recommend | Report Abuse

ruben j wrote: 53m ago
vochord2 wrote: 2h 35m ago
Funny how all the conservatives suddenly don't care one whit about ripping families apart. So much for family values!Then they cry about the law. Abortion is legal. I guess they must have to support it wholeheartedly too, huh? OOOOPS. I bet they'll call any of us who don't follow their doctrine on that or gay rights sinners! Hypocrits all of them. And Pharisee's no less.

"Boy, I sure am a good person. It's good that I'm not like those dirty rotten border jumping law-breakers! All of them such law breakers!" As if you any of you are pure as the driven snow. As if any of you haven't ever broken a law. If your children were literally starving what woudn't YOU do to get them food in their bellies? Remember this one? There but for the grace of God go I. Where's the humility? The compassion? NOWHERE. Where is all your Christian decotion when it comes to the poor? You know, the ones Jesus talked obsessively about? NOWHERE.

What a bunch of truly great--holy--honest--god' fearin' people you all are! Right



==================================\
You have no argument ripping families apart ? idiots like you have to attack evry one for wonting law you can take your Religious C*** else ware !! this is not a joke if you liberal BABY KILLERS Don't won't law go to Mexico! YOU People
say illegal do the jobs Americans wont do you have to prove it not with your propaganda with real numbers to back you up
we have a population of 302,758,280 if illegals are driving our economy with only 12 million people thats nothing more
then a F****** joke with at least six hundred thousand in prison alone so don't give me this we need cheap labor trash
most Americans rarely use illegal immigrants it is American businesses that demand low wage workers

And lets not forget ALL The other liberal propaganda illegal immigrants do contribute 50 billion to our economy but use well over 245 billion do some research




http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... tion_N.htm

And the town can't thrive without immigrants

Bull crap...the town survived before them...and they will flourish without them

Deport illegal aliens.

End of discussion. No other argument allowed.

You do the crime, you do the time,
There, not here, not on my dime.

What part of "illegal" don't you law-breakers understand?

Illegal entry (after the first offense) is a FELONY.

Trespassing on private property to avoid detection by CBP or ICE is a FELONY.

Cutting fences, killing cows and dogs, and busting water lines are FELONIES.

Traveling (at least by air) with a ticket under a false identity is a FELONY.

Securing a phony Social Security number is identity theft - a FELONY.

Avoiding Selective Service registration for the draft (males 18 to 25) is a FELONY.

Providing a falsified I-9 for employment is a FELONY.

Securing a driver's license under false pretenses is (in most states) a FELONY.

Driving without auto insurance should be (or is) a FELONY,
(and driving under the influence is a FELONY, and hit-and-run is a FELONY).

Accepting Social Security or welfare benefits under a false identity is a FELONY.

Getting hospital care without paying for it, pushing the expense onto those
who DO pay taxes, is FRAUD and could be prosecuted as such.
But the hospital would have to endure the bad publicity from Los Racistas
and "Liberation Theology" Marxists posing as NCC Christians or Latino Catholics.

Getting Section 8 public housing under a false identity is a FELONY.

Getting a bank loan to purchase real estate under a false identity is a FELONY.

Not reporting "off-the-books" income to the IRS is a FELONY.

Non-family groups living in single-family housing is only a MISDEMEANOR, but
because of the damage to neighbors' property values, it should be a FELONY.

And a few illegal aliens are Is'amist TERRORISTS - and we never know
which ones they are if ICE doesn't get to run background checks.
And what does a TERRORIST coming across the Mexican border look like?
AN ILLEGAL ALIEN!

Now that we have established that ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE _NOT_
"UPSTANDING LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS" only looking for work and
a better life, can we please dispense with the tear-jerker sob stories and

DEPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS!

I am excited about the new automated meatpacking businessess that will grow from the failed illegal labor business model of animal edible processing and delivery.

We are seeing the yearlings of the heard of sucessful real American agriculture business. If I was in college I would not hesitate to study agribusiness technology. There is an opprotunity a mile wide in the American Food processing industry.

If we can just keep the corporate whoe federal legislators out of agriculture that is. (illegal, Dinna Fientien)