If you’re brown, get out of town
Storm Lake will be a hot mess if local police are bound by state law to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.
Presumably, it’s the direction we’re headed since the legislature passed a law to that effect. Latinos who have been anxious for decades about their place here will feel like targets, if they already don’t.
If you are brown, you would be well-advised to find the fastest route to Minnesota. Worthington is looking for help. Profiling will be the only way to find out who is undocumented.
“I no longer want to live in a state where I feel like I’m not valued,” Enya Cid, a senior at Grandview College in Des Moines, told CNN.
She is a Dreamer, brought here as a toddler, caught in the limbo of not knowing Mexico but not allowed to be a US citizen. Her status is temporary, until it is revoked.
The Iowa law takes effect July 1. Until then, local law enforcement authorities are vague about what they intend to do. They do acknowledge that they are required to enforce state law but are awaiting guidance from the Iowa Department of Public Safety, or somebody.
Perhaps the US Supreme Court. A similar law in Texas is bouncing between the high court and a federal appeals court, which has issued an injunction from the law taking effect. At issue is whether states can take on immigration enforcement, a role reserved for the federal government.
The Supreme Court is closely divided on the issue. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, may be the swing vote.
Suits will be filed against the Iowa law, probably by the American Civil Liberties Union’s Iowa Chapter. Spokesperson Veronica Fowler said she could not comment on pending litigation.
The Storm Lake Police Department has not sought to detain people for being undocumented because it is a federal law enforcement function. They do arrest undocumented people for other crimes. If someone gets jailed for OWI, the Buena Vista County Sheriff will hold them on a detainer from Immigrations Customs Enforcement.
Police chiefs in Marshalltown and Atlantic spoke against the law. Former Storm Lake Police Chief Mark Prosser said the local system is not equipped to deal with it.
As a practical matter, if police are expected to vigorously enforce clearing out “illegals” then every Latino becomes suspect. If you are Latino, you should carry a birth certificate or naturalization papers with you. You should not have anything on your vehicle that expresses your Latino pride.
Once police start sweeping up Latinos, they will clear out. Even if Storm Lake doesn’t press it, maybe the heat gets put on someplace else in Iowa. The message spreads fast — get out of town.
Tyson insists that its workers are documented. But even those with papers can’t be certain that they will not be caught in a dragnet. We have seen it happen before in Storm Lake. Remember 1996. The meatpacking worker might have papers, but if her husband gets deported she will not be far behind him.
We do not know if police and prosecutors will treat the crime like jaywalking or more seriously than that. If they fail to arrest undocumented they are patsies. If they go after them we risk losing our workforce.
Storm Lake is majority “minority.” We can barely get the eggs cracked and the hogs slaughtered with Latino help. Lots of it. Without them, we’re screwed.
The town will empty out. Why stay in Storm Lake when you can go to Illinois, Wisconsin or anywhere but this cold, hostile place that puts a target on your forehead? The authorities will know who the Dreamers are. They come after their parents first. That will be fairly easy. The rest will get the signal: You are not welcome in Iowa. We do not need your help. Hasta la vista, baby.
Major employers, the city council, the board of supervisors and law enforcement didn’t raise a stink with the legislature, not that we heard. Not exactly a profile in pragmatism. Maybe they think it will just go away. They better pray that the Supreme Court asserts federal authority over immigration, or local law enforcement will be knee-deep in a quagmire and Storm Lake will have a full-blown crisis.
This is nothing new to Latinos, who have been living in fear for generations as we invite them in to work and then terrorize them later. I used to think Iowa was better than that — to terrorize people who just want to feed their families in a place that needs their labor. We wouldn’t know shame if it slapped us in the face.
Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.
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Thanks, Art. What will happen in Storm Lake will happen to different degrees all over Iowa. We will lose the labor we need and the friends we have made. I am so ashamed of what Iowa has become. Iowa nice? Hardly.
Over twenty percent of health care workers were born overseas. That number is higher in rural America. What number of those health care workers are actually documented...and do we think all their family members are, as well?
The biggest shortage is in certified nursing assistants, the very individuals our elderly Iowa population rely on...if not today, soon. Is it sweet justice that Iowa's GOP, drunk with centralized Machiavellian rule, suffer from their deeds in a few short years...or that their parents do, a bit sooner? And how 'bout those food prices? Picked tomatoes recently, Mr. Kaufman?
How 'bout asking our U.S. House members to insist that the bipartisan immigration bill come to the floor for a vote...so we can give our immigrants a fighting chance to help us grow old with dignity.