Thread: 200 gather to discuss immigration

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200 gather to discuss immigration
Unauthorized workers in Marshalltown are both a challenge and a blessing, speakers say.

WILLIAM PETROSKI
REGISTER STAFF WRITER


February 26, 2006



Marshalltown, Ia. — Immigration is changing the face of Marshalltown, and community leaders said Saturday that they are committed to helping the newcomers, although they hope Congress can address issues involving unauthorized workers.

About 26,000 people live in Marshalltown, and more than 3,200 are immigrants, mostly from Mexico. The immigrants primarily work in the meatpacking industry, for construction firms, and in other areas that permit entry-level employment without higher education.

"We see it every day in our economy," said Ken Anderson, president of the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce. "These folks are customers in our stores and employees in our workplace. We hope immigration law gets it figured out."

Marshalltown's experience with immigration was the subject of a forum Saturday sponsored by the Iowa Council for International Understanding. About 200 people attended, including students from about 35 countries who are enrolled in Iowa's colleges and universities.

The keynote speaker was Patricia Hamm, an Iowa State University political scientist who came from Mexico to the United States about 25 years ago. She described Marshalltown as a prototype of Iowa cities affected by large influxes of immigrants that are mostly from Mexico.

"This is not one of those towns that is slowly slipping into oblivion. On the contrary, it is very dynamic," Hamm said. She said no one knows for certain how many unauthorized immigrant workers live in the United States.

Hamm outlined several bills pending before Congress involving unauthorized immigrants, both the people who enter the United States clandestinely or those who overstay their visas issued for work, school, or other reasons. She described proposals for solutions ranging from guest worker programs to simply barricading the nation's borders.

"There is massive immigration to the United States because there is a demand for these workers," Hamm said. "My analysis tells me that we are not going to be able to do anything about unauthorized immigration unless we deal with the factors that cause it."

Chamber President Anderson said the congressional debate about illegal immigration appears to be "like closing the gate after the horses are out of the corral. . . . You have immigration that has just blown past immigration law."

John Cahill, an administrator at the Marshalltown Medical and Surgical Center, said it's common to hear local coffee shop talk where patrons discuss those "damn immigrants."

But those same critics will also say, "Carlos and Maria are my friends and neighbors, and they are not the ones we are talking about," Cahill added.

Many of the newcomers are between 18 and 35 years old, prompting a need for obstetricians, gynecologists and pediatricians because the immigrants are bringing spouses and having children, Cahill said.

Many of the 366 students at Marshalltown's Woodbury Elementary School are Latino, said Principal Thomas Renze. Without increased immigration, one or two local schools would have closed because of declining enrollments, he said, adding that the situation poses both opportunities and challenges.

Although it only takes about one year for Spanish-speaking children to develop English-language skills for social situations, it takes about five to seven years for them to develop English-language skills to assure they can succeed in the classroom, Renze said.

"We need to take the long view of where will we be in five or 10 years," Renze said. "These children are not going to go away. They are going to be our future citizens. We need to help them to be productive members of our society."

Irlanda Helgen, a native of Panama who is an early childhood learning specialist with the Area Education Agency in Marshalltown, left the forum with a positive feeling.

"I think it was a good opportunity to create awareness and to motivate people to do something about immigration," she said.

Elizabeth Mendez-Shannon of Iowa City, a doctoral student in social work at the University of Iowa, was born in Ecuador and came to the United States with parents who were granted legal immigration documents. She is the first member of her family to graduate from high school, and she credited her opportunity to pursue a post-secondary education to her legal status, which has permitted her to be eligible for government educational assistance.

Mendez-Shannon and several other speakers expressed concerns that unauthorized immigrants who have good academic skills aren't pursuing college diplomas or technical degrees because they aren't eligible for certain educational aid and for other reasons. This forces those people into lower-paying jobs when they could be developing into highly skilled, well-paid professionals in Iowa's work force, they said.

They agreed that public policymakers need to find ways to ensure that academically capable immigrants can pursue higher education.

"We want to do this for a variety of reasons," Cahill said. "One, we want you to be successful, and, two, we want to tax you."

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Marshalltown leaders committed to helping immigrants


MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa Community leaders in Marshalltown are taking a lead in helping immigrants, saying they are employees in the workforce and customers in the stores.

The city hosted an immigration forum over the weekend, which focused on helping the newcomers.

About 32-hundred of the 26-thousand people living in Marshalltown are immigrants, with most coming from Mexico. They work primarily in meatpacking plants and for construction companies.

Many newcomers bring their families, prompting a need for doctors and teachers.

Patricia Hamm is an Iowa State University political scientist. She describes Marshalltown as a prototype of Iowa cities affected by large influxes of immigrants.

She discussed several bills in Congress dealing with unauthorized immigrants. She says there's a massive immigration because there's a demand for the workers, and it won't be resolved until the factors that cause it are addressed.