Iowans sour on O over immigration

By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent
Last Updated: 10:32 AM, July 12, 2010
Posted: 2:55 AM, July 12, 2010

NEWTON, Iowa -- To learn how the immigration debate is playing in the heartland, and turning one-time supporters against President Obama, take a short trip north of Des Moines to some of the small towns of central Iowa.

These towns among Iowa's cornfields were the unexpected launching pad for Obama's historic presidential campaign. But now, many former Obama backers say they're bitterly disappointed -- thanks partly to broiling frustration over immigration and the administration's efforts to stymie Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Jobs are scarce, with thousands of new layoffs announced by Wells Fargo in Des Moines last week and the closure of the Maytag plant here taking a heavy toll. Some residents blame a continuing flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico who make their way to Iowa's farms and plants in search of work.

"I've got three of my best friends that are out of jobs for layoffs. They're engineers and they can't find squat," fumed Andrew Winningham, 24, a concrete worker in Newton, where hundreds gathered Friday to see a display of gleaming trucks that haul NASCAR race cars to the Iowa Speedway.

Winningham blames the illegals for driving down wages.

"Why pay us more when they can work for less?" he asked.

He said he once made friends with a Mexican-born co-worker who was deported three times. "He got deported on a Friday, and he was back to work by Monday," Winningham said in amazement.

Winningham lays much of the blame on Obama, who got his vote in 2008 by promising to fix the nation's immigration and economic problems. "He made a lot of promises, and you haven't really seen anything he's promised," he said.

Immigration also is a top concern from Sherri Quick, 33, who works at the Pizza Ranch in Newton, a town that doesn't have nearly as many migrants as nearby Marshalltown, where estimates are that up to a third of the population is now Hispanic.

"We're giving the health insurance and all the other stuff [to immigrants] that people are struggling to get," she said. "The companies that hired illegals -- they need to have a lot more consequences, not just shutting down the plant," she said.

Mexican immigrants have been coming to Marshalltown, about a half-hour's drive north of Newton, for decades to fill jobs at its Swift & Co. meat-processing plant.

"It's incredibly hard work. You can't imagine the smell," said Gail Boliver, a lawyer in town who represented Mexican-born plant workers caught up in immigration sweeps.

The feds conducted an immigration raid at the plant in 2006, arresting 99 workers.

Mexican-born Maria Gomez worked in an Iowa meatpacking plant after picking grapes, but managed to get legal status and buy a house near Marshalltown's Main Street, where she runs a business and sells piñatas she makes herself.

She tells her own harrowing story of nearly getting wrongly snatched in a raid at the plant -- but she, too, has soured on Obama -- for failing to deliver on a comprehensive immigration bill, as promised.

"I think that this president kind of took advantage of our trust. He kind of deceived us. We trusted him and he didn't do what he said that he would do."

geoff.earle@nypost.com

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