Immigration dominates the debate in Iowa vote

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MARSHALLTOWN, IOWA - Two decades after he left his native Mexico and eight years after he moved to Iowa, Jose Castillo is tired of being a scapegoat.

"We are not terrorists," he said. "We are not murderers. We are not bad people. A lot of innocent people are being blamed for things just because they're Mexican."

Castillo, a parish worker at St. Mary's Catholic Church who says he came to America legally, personifies a demographic earthquake that is reshaping Iowa's culture and politics and shaking up the presidential campaign.

Hundreds of miles from the Mexican border, Iowans find themselves on the front line of the bruising national debate over immigration policy.

Running hard toward next week's kickoff presidential caucuses, candidates, especially the Republicans, have seized upon the issue to energize their supporters.

"A country that can't protect its own borders cannot remain a sovereign nation," former Sen. Fred Thompson told supporters Thursday at a rally in suburban Des Moines. "We have to stop illegal immigration!"

The battle cry was greeted with thunderous applause.

"I don't think you'll find a person in this room against legal immigration, but if Mexicans can cross the border illegally, so can the terrorists who want to hurt us," Waukee resident Virginia Stone said after Thompson's speech.

Numbers help explain why immigration has become such a provocative issue in Iowa. A state that historically was nearly all white now has a Hispanic population of more than 115,000, an increase of more than one-third during the first half of this decade. As many as half of those people came illegally, according to the state's Division of Latino Affairs.

'The whole town is here'

The shift is even more pronounced in a handful of small cities such as Marshalltown, where industrial jobs, particularly in meatpacking plants, have been a powerful magnet for immigrants. During the 1990s, the city's Hispanic population increased more than tenfold. Hispanics today make up more than 12 percent of the town.

"When I moved here, there were maybe three other Hispanic families," said Francesca Fernandez, who moved there 24 years ago. "Then a neighbor moved, or a friend, or a relative. ... Suddenly, it was like the whole town is here."

Life is mostly harmonious -- "the white and Hispanic people, they live together, no harassment," Fernandez said. But the community was deeply shaken by a raid last December at the Swift packing plant, one of several in states, including Minnesota, where officials arrested hundreds of illegal workers.

"Since then, a lot of people have left for other states," Fernandez said. "Now, sometimes, I feel like I'm half-Hispanic, half-American."

From his downtown barbershop windows, Max Canfield has watched life in Marshalltown for more than a half-century. "It's still a good community, but it sure has changed," he said. "Everybody says that after they picked them up at Swift and took them home [to Mexico], they were back here before the officers that took them there. It's a revolving door."

But a few doors away, insurance agent and real estate investor Christopher Tiernan noted the ambivalence many business owners feel about Marshalltown's new residents.

"Ever since the raid, a lot of Hispanics here are very afraid," he said. "To be honest, I don't have a problem with them. Sure, there's riff-raff, but that's just people.

"Candidates like [Mitt] Romney want to ship all of them out, but that'd be a phenomenal shock to our economy. To run a business anymore, you pretty much have to be bilingual. You adapt or fall off."

Getting the message

With political passions running so high, it is perhaps little wonder that Marshalltown, a city of 26,000 smack in the center of Iowa, has had no fewer than 24 visits by presidential candidates this year.

In general, the Republicans, including Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani, have taken a hard line on illegal immigration, opposing amnesty, guest worker programs and favoring the de facto sealing of America's southern border.

The Democrats, for whom immigration has been a far less important issue, have taken a considerably more conciliatory stance as they've stumped across Iowa. The Democrats' most visible efforts in Marshalltown are Spanish-language campaign brochures found in Hispanic businesses.

A University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll conducted in October found that among Iowans likely to attend the Jan. 3 precinct caucuses, 66 percent of Republicans rated illegal immigration as the top issue, as compared with 35 percent of Democrats.

So Arizona Sen. John McCain found himself viewed as something of a heretic in West Des Moines on Thursday.

"He's been awfully lenient about the illegals," said Ankeny resident Dave Vols, as he waited for McCain to appear at a rally. "Talking about everybody's God's people and all -- well, that's a tough sell in Iowa. We have quite a few Mexicans here now and there's a lot of homegrown attitude against the Mexicans."

McCain cosponsored the immigration overhaul bill that died in Congress this year, amid opposition to its so-called "path to citizenship" for illegals.

"My friends," he told about 300 listeners, "I learned a lesson. I had a bill that would secure the border, establish a guest worker program and reform the law. I got the message. We must secure the border first. We need to do these other things, but the American people want something done about the border."

Urbandale resident Gordon Smith wasn't completely satisfied. "He's right, that we can't just deport 12 million people, but we have to get the border secured," he said. "People are concerned about the crime, the illegals driving without insurance, the burglaries. A lot of it is illegal-on-illegal, so it really doesn't affect me directly, but this bothers a lot of people in Iowa."

Back in Marshalltown, the day before, as he shoveled snow off the steps of St. Mary's, Castillo was fuming. "I wish people would stop discriminating against people who are just trying to help their families at home in other countries," he said. "We're trying to work hard. We have rights, too, right?"

Bob von Sternberg • 612-673-7184