http://ads.qctimes.com/articles/2008/05 ... tHispanics bracing themselves for more ICE raids

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By Tom Saul | Thursday, May 22, 2008 | 40 comment(s)

With rumors flying and fears that last week’s immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, may be only the start of more of the same, the Hispanic community in the Quad-Cities is gearing up to protect itself.

Last Sunday, after the 11 a.m. Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Davenport, church deacon Julian Gutierrez passed out literature telling the parish’s largely Hispanic congregation what their rights are if they should face questioning by federal authorities about their immigration status.

Olga Sanchez of Moline is helping to organize a similar distribution effort as the Mexican Consulate visits Rock Island County in early June to allow Mexican nationals to apply for passports and identification documents.

And Quad-Cities Interfaith has been lining up attorneys and interpreters and urging undocumented immigrants to fill out forms naming a lawyer to represent them in the event that a similar raid takes place in the region.

All of the action comes in the wake of the largest workplace immigration raid in Iowa’s history at a kosher livestock slaughtering operation in Postville on May 12.

“I was on the radio after the raid, and I got 125 calls,â€