News (Noticias) for Iowa

There is a small-town stillness here, neat houses and kids riding bicycles down quiet, leafy streets. But in the Guatemalan bakery, in church pews, at the meatpacking plant and the kosher deli, the strained voices almost always dwell on the raid that changed everything.

The stillness is not serenity. It’s shock. “*

Forty-five illegal immigrants are caught between a federal agency that wants them out of the United States and a legal system that might need them as witnesses.

The 45 are among the 389 Agriprocessors Inc. workers detained on May 12 after the largest single-site workplace raid in U.S. history. The 42 women and three men were released because they had children to care for, and they now wear tracking bracelets on their ankles.”*

Iowa faith leaders are calling for immigration reform laws that would treat immigrant workers humanely in response to recent incidents involving immigrant workers in the state. “*

Back in 2002, before all the trouble, the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk retired from St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church here, his last station in 43 years of ministry. He built a home 35 miles away in a town along the Mississippi, and he indulged a passion for family history, tracing his lineage to an ancestor who had arrived in New Amsterdam with the Dutch East India Company.”*

n an eye-opening essay posted by Duke of Migra Matters at the site The Sanctuary (of which Latina Lista is a founding member), Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D. of Florida International University recounts his experience as one of 26 federally certified interpreters flown into Postville, Iowa to assist with translating for the 390 Spanish-speaking detainees during one of the biggest immigration sweeps in the nation.

His account is astonishing because, as a layperson with knowledge of how the legal system works, from his 23 years as a federally certified interpreter, he cuts through the legalese to expose exactly what ICE is doing to these people.”*

“The ICE raid in Postville has returned Postville to the state it was in 15 years ago,” said Brackett. “All of the work we have done to embrace the diversity of our community, and all of the efforts to build up our community have been destroyed overnight.”"*

When you can’t understand the language or the customs, warming up to someone from another culture is no easy task.

Jose Galan has made strides in breaking down those barriers by overseeing the Latino Soccer League, that includes players from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.”*

WKBF-AM (1270) has new owners, but for the first time in numerous format changes for the Quad-City radio stalwart, it will not be as noticeable to listeners.

The station has signed on as “La Jefa,” Spanish for the female boss. It continues a format of Hispanic music.

Victoria and Emilio Duran of Clarion, Iowa, calling themselves La Jefa Latino Broadcasting, purchased the station for $680,000 from Wisconsin broadcaster Randy Melchert’s company, Quad-Cities Media.”*

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State officials are studying whether federal civil rights laws override Iowa’s “English-only” law that prohibits publication of official government communications in foreign languages.

Publishing the state documents only in English could cause Iowa to lose federal money for such things as transportation-related projects, state officials said.”*

Leaders of a congressional committee are pressing the U.S. Department of Labor for answers on whether an ongoing investigation of child- labor and wage violations at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Ia., will be compromised by a May 12 immigration raid there.

Democratic leaders of the House Education and Labor Committee wrote to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao on May 16. They’re asking for more information on the complaints that prompted the Agriprocessors Inc. investigation. They also want to know whether federal labor officials had any involvement with the raid, which was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.”*

Some things seem to be returning to normal following the raid of a northeast Iowa meat-processing plant two weeks ago.

At the Cattle Congress in Waterloo, makeshift courtrooms have returned to empty gathering rooms. Entrances are now vacant of metal detectors, police officers and security guards. Even hotels and restaurants are seeing fewer government officials coming through their doors.

Other things, though, are still in disarray.”*

Though they are about 80 miles apart, Hispanic businesses in Waterloo have reported potentially crippling drops in business since the Postville Immigration raid. The largest of its type in U.S. history, the raid at Agriprocessors resulted in the detainment of nearly 400 people on Immigration related charges.

Despite the distance from the raid, Hispanic business owners report workers suddenly absent and slower sales. They attribute it to fall out from Postville.

Garcia has seen this before, he said, and believes now is the time to bow out.

“I’ve seen this happen twice. It always takes at least a year for people to regain trust,” he said. “That’s why I’d rather close — it’s going to take time to recover.” “*